On the phone with him, who I left behind, who I didn’t tell
About the tickets until a week had passed since I bought
Them   since the Quito airport I hadn’t been able to get
Ahold of him for over 24 hours and Volcán Wolf was
Erupting in his mind, I was buried in lava, going back to
Creation, pulverized by pyroclastic flow, drowned by ash,
Smothered by some mud and lahars   our connection
Over Whatsapp is spotty as the internet is eaten by sharks
He asks about what I’m doing even though all I care about
Is what he’s doing, how I knew I had to go about this alone
This is an exercise for the future when I know I’ll need to
Leave his world for good  but in the end, none of us exit
As one body with anyone else    instead we are many
Bodies  and at least  we can touch each other every
Once in awhile     At least there is some other world
We can be part of

Brett Salsbury, originally from the Flint Hills of Kansas, currently resides in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. His chapbook, Surrender Dorothy, was awarded the Poetry of the Plains & Prairies (POPP) Award through North Dakota State University Press and was published in 2022. Additional work has appeared in The New Territory, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, and the Concrete Desert Review, with more work forthcoming from Nervous Ghost Press and the Evening Street Review. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.