By Emily Murry
I know I should be texting you right now
I’m off from work and heading to the train
I always text you right now
To let you know that I missed you today
Cause I did, I really did
To tell you that I love you
Cause I do, I really do
But I looked up from my phone for a second at the crosswalk
And James Bond was across the street
I’m not kidding
I really thought Daniel Craig was there waiting to cross the intersection, too
He was wearing brown, leather shoes,
An Oxford shirt with no tie,
Grey suit pants and jacket
But it was the pants, the pants especially that led me to believe that this was indeed Daniel Craig
The belt he wore was for appearance’s sake, not to hold up his trousers, they fit perfectly without it
They tightened at the thigh, just enough to see he ran
And ran a lot
I’m telling you, Daniel Craig! Right there in front of me!
The rest of the trousers were tighter, too
Not like skintight skinny jeans
No, these pants were tailor-made
I always picture tailors as men, but I’m positive his was a woman
No man would know how pants such as these would make a woman feel
Make her wish she didn’t have a job as a tailor
Didn’t have to clean up shop every night
Didn’t have to clean up the mess she made last night when she got home
Didn’t have to wake up at 5 every morning to catch the train
Didn’t have to spend 3 hours commuting on that train
The train with brown, saggy seats
The train with strange-smelling feet
From the man one row ahead who thinks it
“Civilized” to wash his feet in public with a baby wipe
No, I’ve never met a man who could make such well-tailored trousers
I say “trousers” because it feels better to say “trousers” when I say “tailored”
Rather than saying “pants” when I say “fitted”
Or “sleek” or “sharp”
And yes, I did think all of this in the stuttering yet silencing seconds we stood
Daniel Craig and I across a crosswalk from each other
Waiting for a little while for a little white walking man to appear
And he did appear, and we walked across the crosswalk
I toward him and he toward a tower or water or to wait for a different train than I
I didn’t know
All I knew then was that I missed you
I missed the way you walk, the way you stall, the way sometimes you say nothing
At all the intersections in the world, Daniel Craig chose to walk across mine
But all I did was miss you
You and your t-shirts and poplins, you and the rubber bands you wear on your left wrist, you and your untailored pants
So
I’m across the crosswalk
And I’m texting to apologize for not texting earlier
To tell you that I thought I saw Daniel Craig, but it was only a rich man in nice pants
To tell you that I think you’d look great in tailored trousers,
But I would miss the old ones
To tell you that I would be terribly jealous of the woman who would tailor your trousers
And probably would only last til the waistline before I said, “Enough”
Grabbed your hand, and took you home,
On the train that still trails the smell of feet.
Emily Murry is a part-time writer and a full-time mom living in the Charlotte, NC area. She met and married her husband while at BYU and loves all the cliches to their relationship because their hers. She unabashedly likes Shakespeare, Nora Ephron rom-coms, and farming sims. Emily graduated from BYU in 2016 with a Bachelor’s in English. She was a fiction editor for Inscape during her Fall 2015 and Winter 2016 semesters. Her professional background also includes editing academic writing and creating online content for a digital marketing firm. Her previous publications include a poetry selection for her poem “Prufrock on My Mind.”