I never knew but did eventually discover

the calculus of our connection.

When you gossip, you twist the truth

like a little tree in the wind

or a snake in a cell phone.

Could you stand to know that No One replaced you?

That your misogynist predictions didn’t come true.

Not because they couldn’t, but because I didn’t want them to.

God, what a joke—

Animal crackers burnt up in smoke.

You keep on checking for any sign

that I’m still suffering whereas you’re fine,

but I now count your canary’s frowns

—she makes her rounds, the rumors fly—

So sometimes she writes me cryptic letters

to mark the passing of time,

and lists the things you’ve done to her,

which seem so close to mine.

All sacrifice was theoretical,

not mathematical.

But for this I would have been a little bit better,

a little more radical.