Empty Bag

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The summer’s been keeping it hundred,
but I’m just thirty-one, angsty at others
instead of looking at myself, so I drive
to the park as if the lake’s a better mirror
than the one in my bathroom.
Beyond the gates to the Japanese garden:
two men together for the first time
in months, a quinceañera photoshoot,
twentysomethings on a double date, and me
walking across the rickety bridge of assumptions.
The artificial waterfall exhales
interminably. And Me! Me! a peacock calls,
raising his many eyes to gawk at a peahen.
A young man brandishes a selfie-stick, tiptoes
to get as much plumage in the frame as possible,
and when the peafowl run away, rage swells
in my throat, but I swallow. Unable to stand
myself or other people, I sit by the lake.

A green heron glides above its reflection, lands
on a rock, stabs the water, retracts its neck, gulps.
There is not the fleece of a single cloud.
A woman in flip-flops saunters into view, three kids
galloping behind, ponytails fountaining
from atop their heads, and as she looks at the sky,
the tattoo on the side of her neck glistens
over the ridge of her jaw and onto the meadow
of her cheek. The kids giggle and crumble bread
for a growing crowd of geese, and I rise to tell them
bread isn’t good for birds, but I notice one of the geese
is missing a foot, just standing on the shore, watching
as the others eat. It paddles the air, trying
to put down what isn’t there, and I get goose-
bumps, the recognition of being left behind,
the others not even looking back to check.
It hops a foot closer and turns as if to say, “Please,
don’t you have any?” and I show my hands,
my furrowed brow that feeds no one.
We look at the flock, the kids reaching
into the bag for the last crumb, and I almost shout,
but there is no more bread.

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