Michael Martone 

Four Yearbook Signatures

To a Nice Girl I Met in Freshman English after Mrs. Wiggs Embarrassed Me in Front of the Whole Class for Misspelling, Taking My Hand and Talking to It, Saying, “WHERE!” and “WERE!” and “Can You Hear the Difference, Can You Feel the Difference?”

Later, I felt your breath on my ear, your name breathed into my brain. You slipped me the note that told were to meet you.

To My Best Friend Sophomore Year Who Got Caught by Mr. Humphrey Writing Her First Name Over and Over Again Married to My Last Name, Practicing Her Made-up Signature When She Was Supposed to Be Reading the Part of Lady Macbeth

Later, we laughed about being laughed at, happy now everybody knew we where a we. And later later you said my first name over and over like it was a poem or something.

To a Girl I Wrote Stuff for in Mrs. Neuhaus’s Class While We Studied Carol King’s Tapestry and Who Was Famous for Being the Reserve Cheerleader Who Misspelled the Traditional North Side Cheer, T-E-E-M

Later, the yellow stains of nitric acid from Dvorak’s chem lab left on my fingernails finally grew out, and I thought then that, then, I would be over you then and, then, I wasn’t over you even then.

To a Great Girl Who Cried So Sweatly in Mr. Lewinski’s Senior Seminar When We Read Tess of the d’Ubervilles and Will Go Far in Muncie at Ball State as an Actuarial Scientist

Later, I will find out that this means your life will be taken up by the calculations of death.  You will make tables of numbers. Odd, I imagine you ask yourself every day since those diminished days in high school, what were the odds that we would ever meet, that we met, that we will ever think of meeting ever again?