Farewell Aeroplane
En route to Paris, I dreamt of the man who would trail me in the weeks ahead, the man who would watch as I folded my life into a dainty backpack each morning to disappear into the day, the man who would secretly follow me around the city, the man who would wait for me to offer a smiling, silent return in the evenings when we would finally, finally fold ourselves into each other.
I dreamt that after our absent decade, the man would be incapable of abstaining from eyeing, from prying, and I dreamt that as I walked through the streets and museums and cafes and bars, when I danced through the other men, through the other women, every move would still, even after all of this time, still be for his viewing.
Vallie Lynn Watson is the author of the novel A River So Long (Luminis Books); her Pushcart-nominated short stories appear widely in literary journals such as Hobart, PANK, and Bending Genres. Watson teaches fiction in the MFA program at McNeese State University, where she edits the magazine Boudin. She hunts for seaglass in her spare time.