I want to tell you I chose to feed the ducks, that it wasn’t me who desired the lover reliable as bread. O beaming woe, I got on the wrong freeway, approached the gas pump on the wrong side, let you love me by the wrong name. Silver lining—that is, reflective—at least it was distance & something close enough to fuel. Shelve my entire, unabridged slop-slop, uncut from the spine. The trick, I guess: A library’s strength has nothing to do with how many pages you read. I could see everyone who would have me; the car would leave a crosscountry of exhaust like breadcrumbs. The route like the mood of us, lover, an unpracticed patchwork. Sometimes, everyone has to take stock of what they have & hope it’s enough. There was something close enough to indulgence in the eat-through of our winter. Whatever we believed about the eventual sun, it was only the ground—after all—that could unfold. Every yellow head could be a mouth, open.