It is not
cold so much as not the same.
You can
only rub a coin for so long
before the
imprint vanished,
or your
thumb runs out of skin.
Maybe the
word is remote,
this
estranged sense that
I'm no longer front in the line.
Maybe the
clues came even before
I felt put out,
the
question about the other man
I consider my friend,
his book on her bed where mine used to be.
Maybe I
took down her picture
too often
from my page,
unable to bear looking at it,
not because she was any less beautiful,
but because of how it made me feel,
like a
duckling following behind
a flock of duckling, suddenly finding myself
last.
The clues
there like a detective novel,
only I was not wise enough
to pick up
on them until the damage was done
and she put me out to pasture,
and brought someone else in to her barn,
not cold,
not hostile, just remote
as if I longer matter in whatever plans
she had
cooking on her stove,
the last
duckling.
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