Page 88 of Wayfarers

the scent of Gain, of Tide. I’m watching

her face for any hint

that she minds my careful attention and seeing

nothing in her eyes’ dark fire to make me

pause, I continue on. She’s sitting still,

like she’s watching a rare bird, long thought extinct.

Still, like she’s trying

to quiet her pulse. Once, when we were pulling out

of a campground, a yappy little

Jack Russell pursued our bus,

for a lot longer than you would have

expected, given his stumpy legs

and round body that said he was denied

few t-r-e-a-t-s, and Aspen said, Man, lil’ dude wants us

so bad but he wouldn’t know

what to do with us if he caught us.

I’m probably no different

from that dog in how

the true shape of my own

desire is a mystery, but I know I’m grieving

the passing of this moment

before I’ve even stopped living it.

Knox

“Did you get it all?” Sylvie murmurs.

“Yeah, I think so.” I wish it weren’t so. But I got it all a long time ago.

It feels like a line has gone taut between us. Then Sylvie pulls away and says, with what feels like deliberate lightness, “Make sure because if you leave even a speck, it’ll take root in my scalp and grow into, like, a pair of socks.”

“The way watermelons will grow in your stomach if you eat the seeds?”

“Exactly.”

“You know what are weirdly tasty?”

“I feel like you’re about to say ants or something.”