Ashley Jeffalone

The man who will later steal from me is directing a short film. Today, in this moment, we’re still friends, so I pick up when he calls.  On the grounds of his apartment complex, he leads me to a Bradford pear tree, puts me underneath, and I kneel along the roots to thieve shards of glass from the green. There are other people with us, laden with cameras and lights, and they lean over me, commit my idling to film. They come close enough for me to remember their sugared breath but not their faces, not their voices—I’ve lost years…