It’s a college party, 10 p.m.

I’m the one out back, with my purse

under my arm, fidgeting with curls,

while the guys of the house, shouting,

flip quarters on the old wooden table.

I give a bewildered, squeamish look

at their eager mention of beer bong.

I’m the one apart from conversation,

warming a sticky white sugar puff

in the smoking embers with one hand

and text messaging with the other—

the puff blackening under blue-tinged light,

but I like the burnt flakes, the inner cream.

I would have you sooner if I could,

reads the box screen in my palm.

I would go anywhere, anywhere,

if he were there, would have me.

I am only here to try to forget

the suffocating soundlessness

of roommates gone for days.

I alone notice the boy-like man

who said he wouldn’t play for us,

but, when nobody seems to look,

moans a few lines of hushed song,

strums a few strings, eyes closed.

I can’t tell what his song means;

the rumbling chatter erases him.

When he walks off into the bushes

thinking we don’t care to hear,

I’ve lost the voice to call, Stay.