6:00 pm
                In a turn of events that surprises no one,
                I am already late, and Will says,
                                It’s all good.

6:01 pm
                Curls of skin are peeling
                                off Will’s lips.

6:15 pm
                Will Toledo looks best in a Target parking lot,
                                head on his car seat
                                on his carseat head
                                on his seat resthead
                                head car on his seat
                                car headrestcar seat.

6:16 pm
                Will forgot everything
                that happened three years ago.
                Will is a name from history.
                Will is something Roman and lovely and dead,
                                something aurum, imber, aequinoctium.

6:25 pm
                Will plays me a ditty he wrote
                in a Target parking lot
                                He pulls the tiny toy drum set from under the seat,
                                tiny toy hihats jangling

6:30 pm
                I watch him lick a forgotten
                french fry off the floor.
                                Sitting in the car, in the Target parking lot,
                                just me and Will Toledo.
                He tells me he misses my midnights with me.
                He crawls into my frontal lobe.

Niyanta Kunal Patel is an emerging Indian-American poet and artist from Nashville, Tennessee. She currently studies neuroscience, chemistry, and creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Find her on twitter @temporalsplendr.