Dinner with Anna from Universe X

She wears sparkling indigo satin,
which deepens her hazel eyes.
She smells of cinnamon,

drops French words, quotes Keats,
with wrist flick emphasis,
bracelets tinkling.

I know by watching her
which utensils to use
as we eat first a golden soup,
then oysters. I mirror her.

All the while she tells me
of her travels, elephant rides,
hammocks in India, Mai Tais.

Gazing into her placid forehead,
I know she never fell in love
with a drug addict, never
subsisted on lentils and rice.

We can’t find the exact moment
when her life and mine splintered.

She pulls up her shirt,
and I reach for her flat stomach,
trace where her scar would be
if she were me.

Anna Stolley Persky, a lawyer and award-winning journalist, lives in Northern Virginia. She’s pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at George Mason University. Her fiction has been published in The Write Launch, VOIS, and The Plentitudes Journal. Her poetry has been published in the Sad Girls Club Literary Blog and The Closed Eye Open.