Inside every rabbit grows a forest.
A map tells me I am just shy

of a thousand miles from the sand
pine nodding outside your window.

Each state between us jangles
like a coin box. Each city: an insect-

hole. I am too broke to come visit
you, and even so I have become

as small to you as the leak inside
a cup of water. A clean getaway

is just a row of bridges walled in
by fog’s cold mushroom. I imagine,

now, you gazing at someone new:
her eyes bright as keys, her hair

red-brown and soft as the pages
of that book you’ll tell her you love.

It is time that I must let this little fish
slip from my hand even as I am

blinded by all the salt of this world.