PROSE POETRY​

DIANA DONOVAN

SOMETHING ABOUT TRIANGLES


Delaney FaceTimes Fiona about the Math, yells upstairs something about triangles. You think of all the things that derail you in any given week—deadlines missed, garbage that didn’t go out, bills you meant to pay. Your first semester in college, you kissed a boy (not your boyfriend) on the corner in the rain, walking back to your dorm from an off-campus party. You couldn’t stop looking at each other all night. He’s a filmmaker now—you follow him on Instagram. How different things can stir emotion, how good it feels to be pulled close, how he called you after his ex-girlfriend in Connecticut was murdered by her husband—and you wept, no wonder trust is hard when the person you marry is the one most likely to kill you. How, in your first session of group therapy, you broke down, sobbed about your mother, addiction, violence, then laughed at yourself for becoming unhinged, said, You can’t tell, but I’m really high-functioning, while the others nodded their heads. How some people get better over time at recognizing love, like the first one who made you feel anything (not the filmmaker) who almost had you believing in God, how triangles, like everything, contain mysteries, how there is yet so much to figure out.
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​Diana Donovan lives in Mill Valley, California with her husband and daughter. A graduate of Brown University, her work has appeared in Pacific Review, Plainsongs, Pithead Chapel, West Trade Review, and more.