“I’m calling about your daughter”

after Leila Chatti

When the man on the phone mentions casualties, it summons that Chappell Roan song—the one she skipped in the car because the chorus mentions getting eaten out in the passenger seat—and as he speaks, I’m rubbing my forearm tattoo, the blackbirds we both got on her eighteenth birthday, until I stop when he mentions a blast radius because I never thought a radius would trouble me beyond forgetting to square it in high school geometry, but when I hear the start of a condolence, I clench my hand over the tattoo, as if to keep it from vanishing into the air.

Stephen K. Kim (he/him) is a writer and college educator in upstate New York. He enjoys spending time with his husband and his cat.