Page 58 of Wayfarers

was safe to pet right before my dumb dog

happy-nosed that kid right down

onto the pavement. Cue tears, recriminations.

Or when Cal let me ramble on about a book

I loved for twenty solid minutes

before he laughed and said, I never

have any idea what you’re talking about,

Sylvie, then kissed me. I wake up these days

too hot in too-thin sheets and I think

I’m living it, my biggest mistake but on loop, I drove

myself to the end of the world to escape it

and instead I doubled down and now

I’m all in, screwing up every minute,

outside the Greyhound station

watching a guy straight up selling baggies

out of his trench coat at Terminal 2

and is this the kind of life Knox was living before?

Am I awful and privileged if I think: actually, this place

looks kind of dangerous? I don’t want to save him

because I can’t, because that would make me judgmental.

But I want to save him from this. I want to drive away

with him. He’s taking too long

undoing his seat belt with his broken arm—is he

stalling? He’s stalling, I didn’t know

this could get worse—and when I lean over

to release him he’s right there, suddenly,

breathing harder, his eyes on mine,

and it’s a mistake any way I play it. If

I kiss him. If I don’t. If I said

I didn’t know this lay between us