Quiet

                                   —a golden shovel after Diane Seuss’ frank: sonnets pg 37

Let me first say I never knew if
you left me or I left you.
My therapist wants me to consider what it is that I want
and I tell her I think it’s a toasted pumpernickel bagel with butter but I can’t because of the 
celiac and all. In my mind, I’m already unfolding the wax paper and inhaling the grand
aroma so I miss what she says next. If there is a prize
for charming patients I want to win it. In the end, I decide that it was you 
who left me (after I left you). That must
have been the way things went. I have a desire to be more captivating but I keep
returning to the same old scenes. Like the way a 
snowflake caught in the ends of my daughter’s red hair made the whole world go quiet.
A flock of temporary diamonds strewn across her troubled shoulders. Never mind.