And they would never in a million years steal

your plastic lawn toad!

But I knew they stole her toad, of course, and this is where

our relationship was and where I knew it would remain

when I woke up that September morning to my landline ringing

like a siren, my friend through the wire, crying,

Turn on the TV! Turn on the TV!

It was 2001. Not only did I not have a TV,

I didn’t have the internet, a cell phone, or a car—so shoeless

and still in my pajamas, I did the unthinkable and ran

across the street to pound on Debbie’s door.

She was so unsurprised

to see me on her porch,

I knew the world

had changed.

We sat on opposite ends

of her sofa as a cloud

of black smoke screamed

from the top of the North Tower.

I wanted to turn my eyes

from the screen

but knew what I couldn’t

see was worse—the people

on the floors above the ones

on fire, calling home

and getting a machine.

And then, what it is

for a mother to stare

down a plane, nose to nose.

The newscaster spotted something

that stole his capacity to speak

and Debbie and I

moved closer on the couch.

Was it right then

that she understood

the neighbors before me

and their desperation

to grow another world?

Was it right then

that I asked her

her name?

NOTE TO THE STRANGER SIX FEET AWAY:

There was never not a bridge from your chest to mine. My heartbeat was always the sound of your feet walking toward me. I can’t believe how many years I lived without knowing the air you were breathing out was the air I was breathing in. Forgive me for not saying thank you before our lungs had reason to hide. Do you pray more now than you used to? I pray all the time. I pray to the Big Bang and to the Tiny Bang and to the bangs we’ll all have to cut ourselves so we can see what beauty can only be seen from six feet away. A giraffe’s neck is six feet long. A decade from now, will I remember the week I spent wondering if I could hug a giraffe’s torso and not get sick if the giraffe coughed? I don’t want to forget anything about this. Especially not how it feels to worry about everyone I love at the same time—so much of the world had been doing that already.

If every heart-worthy novelist weeps for days before killing off a beloved character, god must have spent centuries sobbing before pressing a pen to the page of this year.

GOOD GRIEF

Let your

heart break

so your spirit

doesn’t.

THE CALL, OPTION 1

I pay seventeen dollars online to track down the phone number

of the man who sexually assaulted me, and my friend asks, “What

do you plan to say?”

I’ll tell him I know he lost

all his money gambling