so the editor found herself again
and decided that love never lies.
her parakeet befriended me,
but i didn't like birds.

i started out trying to write the world
and barely made it through the week.

she and i used to take walks
at three in the morning and
speak of the little things other
people don't notice.

i couldn't believe the crayon lines
were real and she didn't make us up.

she drew herself into the margins
of every book she read, then
returned them to the library
and hoped a suicidal soul would notice.

i screamed murals into a tape
recorder, and it only stared.

she had a collection of bird feathers that
represented each of her favourite
authors, because each time she read
another book, there was another feather.

we never sailed together, even
though the moon yelped for us
and she gestured for us, and

*(really, i was the one left hanging, empty hands and a broken neck)