Because I could no longer see your smile, I went for a run.
I threaded beads of prayers mile after mile as I went for a run.

Cancer consumed marrow. My feet raged against wet pavement.
Even though years had passed since you had me beguiled, I went for a run.

You drove from Athens, Georgia to Norman, Oklahoma in a rental car.
We touched for the first time when you came through my aisle. We went for a run.

Once we ran out of gas. You tested fate and me. What equation
comprised of reconciliation yields tensile? I went for a run.

We spoke on the phone for hours, but distance still compiled day after day.
I was unfaithful — launching betrayal like a missile. I went for a run.

We became friends somehow. You wrote me something ridiculous
and marvelous, prank called like a juvenile. I went for a run.  

A mutual friend said, Oh, Ray, he is not yours to mourn.
He hasn’t been for a while. I went for a run.

Ray Ball is the author of the chapbooks Tithe of Salt (Louisiana Literature, 2019) and Lararium (Variant Lit, 2020) and an editor at Coffin Bell and Juke Joint. Her poems and flash fiction have appeared in descant, Ellipsis Zine, Glass, Waccamaw, and elsewhere.