Remember that time your dog died and I didn’t tell you for months

I want to be president / she says unprompted. / Her unfinished writing task / lies on the table between us.

When fifteen hours of Wagner’s Ring draws to a close, please Siegfried, don’t take the potion making you forget Brünnhilde.

My father puts the milk carton / on the kitchen table. Declares, She bought it—before.

Doctors cannot tell you when you’re born / how many pitches your arm contains.

In your next life you will be / birthed in needles / of hoarfrost, your eyes still / in the blue gauze between

You can die in January if you want, / and lots of people do, but this far north, / nobody gets into the ground till spring.

You’ve seen them in the deep sleep / of the season: figures sitting in a garden, / light on their faces as you enter.

I never dreamt of you but of your parts: / my flatland home, the mountains my mother loved, / beach where I could look out and see only not-you.

From Hamra to Bliss St, we’ll list the loves we’ve thrown in the sea.