Trenton Hickman, semifinalist

 

We Regret to Inform You

 

that during the most romantic years of your otherwise

scuffed shoe life, you will be played

by your understudy to rave reviews.

 

We regret to inform you that the kindnesses

your starched colleagues lavish upon you at work

have not been genuinely sweet but laced

 

with aspartame. Phenylketonurics beware. We regret

to inform you that though we had many fine applicants

for poet-prophet, you were not one

 

of them. Human resources

will keep your syllables of saxifrage

on file. We regret to inform you

 

that we mistakenly awarded you true love

with “Karen,” when the correct match

should have been “Maren.” Our sincerest condolences

 

would fly out post-haste to Maren as well, if we were able

to wake her from the fugue of a misplaced life,

that haphazard constellation of days

 

that feel to her like a missed button, a crawling

at the back of the neck, as if a stranger in China

had accidentally called out the flower of her name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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