WAYFARING STRANGER

“No,” I say. “I suppose it only makes everything known.”

We lean our heads back against the tree and look up at the puffy, white clouds.

“Why bother with it at all then?” Ann says.

“Because you can’t keep up the illusion forever,” I say. “No one has that much magic.”

For a long while, we sit, saying nothing. No one attempts to hold hands or tell a merry joke, to talk of what has happened or what is to come. We simply sit, our backs to the tree, our shoulders grazing on another. It is the lightest of touches and yet it’s enough to weight me to the earth.

And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path, that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it.

So ask me in that way you do

And I’ll leave these fields and I’ll come to you

And watch my heart as it breaks in two