Our lives are ill-fitting fragments
we keep rearranging into
puzzles we don’t care to solve
pictures we want to see

My love guides my hand
as I turn my pieces around,
feeling for familiar edges,
grasping for the image
I once glimpsed on the box ⁣

Which way was the sky?
Who is this man she sees?
Why does he not look like me:
the boy who talked to stars
before learning to speak excuses

Fingers rummage empty pockets—
Did I already lose the pieces
I had hidden from her
so now I have to make up
which way it all goes?

“No, no” I croak and pull back,
cutting her suggestion short.
“That’s moonlight on water.”