Punchline
Henry Koskoff

She lived with her grandmother, an old French caterer,
so she knew everything and smelled like cigarettes.

On the swingset she swung. My feet locked me in place.

I said you can’t come over, I don’t know how to make dinner.

Have you any eggs? she asked.

Yes I answered, realizing how long my shins had gotten.

That’s a dinner she told me.

It was then I should have performed that patrilineal joke
consisting entirely of the same nine letters
spoken aloud in different series.

To return the gift of epiphany. To switch families.

But I panicked and never spoke to her again.

I want to say now: Béatrice,

everyone we know is the projection of a robot,
and we are two babies in a dream.

Henry Koskoff is a writer-performer and current candidate for a Poetry MFA at New York University. His work has been published in The Round, Helicon, and Wussy Mag.