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To Karin: The Unsent Letter

I called you my Magyar princess
because of your smoldering eyes
and dark hair and maybe you were—
or maybe just a woman
who knew how to disappear
while standing still.

I got your number from 
your grandfather five years
after you departed 
to visit the Brandenburg Gate
with a promise to return
in the spring.

A Florida area code, 
and a man’s voice I didn’t know
picking up on the second ring.
He said you were at work at the club
and I wondered if he meant
you were an exotic dancer.

I didn’t know what to say 
so I held the line for a moment,
listening to someone else’s air
and then let it go, setting
the phone down gently
as if you might still hear.

I never tried calling again.
Some silences are too complete
for interruption, and you were
always good at leaving 
before the questions started,
so I’d learned to stop asking.

I still think of you sometimes,
when the light shifts a certain way.
Your name drifts through me,
not painful—just unfamiliar,
like something once known by heart
then misplaced in another room.

Copyright © Roxanne Andorfer

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