Group Chat Finds Love

There’s been a breakup so we’ve assembled in the Kootenays,
each monitoring a different app, the zip & fizz of new likes,
& the day’s agglomerate of nearby men: mediocre, milquetoast,
many, many maybes. We hike to hot springs then slink & shiver
between vaping teens who, adjusting their swimsuits, blow tangerine steam
across the sulphur. Dipping down to our shoulders, we get to the bottom
of why he left & if his mother is to blame, believe ourselves
mineral-rich & healing. What else to do but reach for what we have,
assigning the dogs their Sex and the City counterparts & mocking the matches
that scare us, each hypersexual hypocorism a sign that we’re trying.
We swipe profiles seeking humble women, witty women, tiny women
with cute laughs, good hygiene, no crazy, & we consider joining
a couple, throuple, quadruple, why not, who knows what we want
or where we’ll find it. The breakup sex was worth it, hours of weeping
notwithstanding. We’ve got affirmations written right there on the mirror.
At night a boyfriend who won’t propose builds us a fire so we can burn the worst
of it—letters, a little pink shell, kissing marzipan pigs—& stare red-eyed
at a sable, smoky sky, the dogs chomping on the grass by the shed & sneezing.
We are practiced at imagining more; pointing at the porch light concealing stars,
we say, pretend that’s the moon.