Attendance

Sean Madden

The umbrella is a prop, sheltered
as we are by the awning overhead.

A privileged pair, you and I,
tasked with taking the day’s
attendance to the front office.

Papier-mâché hot air balloons
hang from wire in the breezeway.

We could collapse it, the umbrella,
and not get wet. But we hold it aloft
between us so we can be close.

A second-grade class, your mother’s,
plays Heads Up, Seven Up with
the lights turned out.

How you love rainy day games.

Our shoulders brush; nylon against
nylon makes a zipping sound.

Do you know how I adore you?

That word—zipping—with a z:
my favorite letter to write in cursive.

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Sean Madden is an analyst at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. His story, “How the Lonesome Engine Drivers Pine,” was a finalist for Alternating Current Press’s 2018 Luminaire Award for Best Prose. He is also a co-recipient of the 4th Annual John Updike Review Emerging Writers Prize. His stories and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Broad River Review, Ponder Review, The Los Angeles Review, Waccamaw, and Dappled Things. He holds an MFA from the University of Kentucky, and lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada with his wife and sons. Visit him at seanmadden.org.