This late, the blinking light shines
back on the audience, and you
become the movie. You are the actor
who has been all Greta Garbo, all
Sean Penn or anyone else who ever
lived in public and wanted no one
to see. The light from the screen
holds you now in its sweaty palm
and squeezes out your secrets, the crush
you had on your brother’s wife, how you
lunge-kissed her that Christmas. All of it
back story now, and by the time the film
is over, and you reach for your coat, you
hope no one was watching after all, that
no one figured out how your story ends,
or thinks it is all too obvious, specifically
pointing to the scene with you sitting
all alone in the flickering dark.
Movie theater, last showing
Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York city. Please visit her website, Francinewitte.com. She can be found on social media @francinewitte.