Published in Connotation Press

For Catie Rosemurgy

It might take a while to get over you, how to put things back together without turnkey or worm screw. My Siberian Husky by the fireplace, one eye, ice-blue, the other-- bottomless amber. Here are some possibilities for a hook: the two most repeating digits I learned in school, the first girl who raped my idea of a love affair, chaste and sound, those platonic moors. Come to me, she said, after reading some obscure Victorian romance novel. I brought the guilt-ridden longings, the glue, and my mother's broken Japanese tea cups. Excuse me for my falsehoods is what I wanted to tell her in braids and plaid dress. She was too old by then, and I always fell in love with bright surface colors. But she taught me that I could be split in half. Like you, she walked away empty handed, but laughing, full of herself.