I met the girl who held the flower and mirror
and the boy who sent his hoop up to the god.
Put away childish things they said, and stepped
into the future. They were made of baked earth,
their tenderness intact.
Robbers there had come and gone, come
and gone for years
like glass.
In locked cabinets, washed up:
a bone brooch, the sea’s
furl, an iron fire-dog.
The hoop rolled down again,
clattering.
The girl awoke and set her flower
inside the mirror.
The boy cartwheeled
behind his hoop, end over
end, over
endless sand. We think of them.
They never think of us.
We think of them.
And the hard-hearted doll
repeated the lesson:
love’s asymmetry is true,
they never think of you,
love’s asymmetry is true
love’s asymmetry is true