Breadcrumb #456

FINOLA MCDONALD

I need you
to keep me on time. this house
is burning. we only have
a year to leave.
we never will.
the dogs will stay, too.
Instead, we’ll make motions
of happiness in the rearview mirror,
rent out forgotten cities, make love
in the parking lots,
spill blood over the crumbled mezzanine
and dry fountains.
I remember the way you held dark berries
between your fingers
in the later evenings of the summer
the way they looked busted
and thin and poor
against my temples.
they were the only thing
you could have saved
    but you put them out in the heat
to dry and acted like they’d never
change.

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