Pat Foran
1. THE DISPATCHThis Wave, a Little One (Quietly)
There’s a lake that is a locket, a love machine without the machine. Hey that’s me right? you said, pointing to the lapping waves, remembering something I’d said, laughing (sort of). Yes it’s you, I said. How quiet these waves, how they lap at this hour.
You’ll never know, probably, what I mean by this.
I’ll never know, probably, precisely what I mean by this.
I try to explain it to myself sometimes. I try to explain it, I think, so I might be able to tell you, tell you what you’ve done for me, what you do for me. What you do. So you know, know that someone knows. That someone could love you.
I also try to explain it so I might be able, in the process of explaining, in the telling and retelling, to recreate the lapping from this locket of a lake. The lapping that is the telling and retelling makes it possible for me to sleep. To sing. To love. The way you do.
So, yeah, to explain how the lake that is a locket moves on a hinge that isn’t a hinge but a dimensional soul that opens and closes, opens and closes, and opens again, always, like a door that isn’t a door but an unheld hand.
Or, how love — when it laps, quietly, the waves bending, anything but mechanically, as they meet the shallow water, slowing, quietly — is the essence of presence, of now. Now, when it’s all I can do to keep from sliding back to then. The then before you.
Maybe, someday, I’ll get better at this. Better at some of it.
Maybe, someday, you’ll get closer to knowing what I mean. You’ll see it and hear it and feel it and say it, say it and say it quietly, and it’ll lap, this wave, a little one, quietly, lap like a song that isn’t sung so much as spread, like — what is it called? Underwood Deviled Ham? Yes, that’s it. Then you’ll know it, I think, you’ll know how amazing it is, I hope, and how beautiful, and you’ll say it without laughing (sort of). Especially at this hour.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYLaptop
Fisher Space Pen
Post-its
Shower-damp hair
Bottle of Capone Family Secret / Blue Raspberry Soda
Music: “Pacific Breeze: Japanese City Pop AOR & Boogie 1976-1986”
3. BIOGRAPHYPat Foran lives near a lake that is more like a lavaliere, or maybe a bangle. His work has appeared in various places, including Tahoma Literary Review, Reckon Review, Gastropoda and Best Small Fictions 2021. Find him at neutralspaces.co/patforan and on Twitter at @pdforan.