every year, she says. I don’t believe
her, those words like lines we cross
on our way to the library to pay our dues.
She is final. I believe her in the way
I believe in Santa Claus or Satan:
without my heart in it, always
expecting something more than what I’m told.
She folds paper cranes like that, too
quickly. An expert in excess: unnecessary.
I know she will let me wallow in myself
until she folds me into that shape,
the portions of us we have mapped.