after Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí
Frank eats breakfast beside her, vitamins
clattering from their bottles. Audible swallows
of water cause his eyelids to twitch.
She pushes him from her red suitcase,
folds her clothes into it. His panic grows—
he begs her not to leave him, follows her
downstairs and outside, but she refuses to stay.
She turns the key, Frank feeling ill as he watches
her leave it under the reclining woman. Stay!
Please, he says, and without shame throws
himself at her feet. She strokes his whiskers
with her thumb, distracts him with the flickering
blue-greens of foliage, the flash of a magpie.
The tempo of her movements increases as she gathers
her things, checks her watch, melts into a taxi.
Pulling away, she sees him shrinking through glass.
Then Frank leaps from his porch into her echo.