You and I first met in Sunday art class. A portrait of the Thief (stately, flag-bordered) looked on from above at our class: twenty-five kids, hunched over easels. Identically long plaits trailed down your shoulders and mine, yours raven-black and sleek, mine mousey and more fuzz than plait. You chewed on yours. Once, you looked me in the eye while doing it and said, ‘I hate it.’

a harvest so grand that a thousand rabbits could feast at the same table with twice the falcons

but no deity / provided a cooling wind / for my own burnt shoulders.