Meeting a Stranger

  —Cass Park, Ithaca

He asks, You have some food, some change
to spare? On morning runs, I have
no pockets, my house key tucked into my shoe.
I’m sorry, no, I say. To make my point,
I gesture at myself, as if to add,

there’s nothing here I can give you,
or anyone. Violets, tissue-paper torn
into confetti, scatter through the grass
beside the trail. You’re very selfish: all
he says before he turns and walks away.

I run again. The pounding of
my feet, my blood, distract me from the fact
that words are sometimes all I have to spare,
all that I can give to you, to anyone.
I lunge into the morning. April sunlight

folds against Cayuga Lake,
shore rimmed in gold. Yellow-tipped
forsythia bend beneath the weight of sky
to touch the fragile ground. I do not stop.
My house key bites my foot with every step.