Sonnet with Long Distance

Love was a tandem bicycle in the garage

of the guy on Facebook Dating (is that a thing?),

who asked if I’d be interested in a joyride.

They were all the way in southern Minnesota

so I don’t know why we were even talking;

it was just a way to pass the time. I’ve never tried

a tandem and I can’t ride a unicycle,

I told him, but I love to bicycle on the trails around

here, thinking should he ever visit, he would cook

photogenic food for me, and I’d ask him to fulfill

my desire not to be alone. We’d fail to ride a tandem, 

we both knew. He ghosted me. I imagined

a ghost woman pedaling with him past cornfields

and my ex’s girlhood home in Waseca.

Freesia McKee is a poet and hybridist writing about gender, genre, history, and place. Recent work appears in *Cleaver*, *Fugue*, *Puerto del Sol*, and *petrichor*, and her chapbooks *Hummingbird Vows* and *How Distant the City*. Freesia is an Assistant Professor of English at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Read more: FreesiaMcKee.com.