The Fat of the Fog Hovers Over

a man who sits inside his canoe, beached at the shore. He sits
inside it swaying. The thick is so close, only a few
ducks swim, visible. The lake itself has vanished. Behind me
traffic lights like helium as evening

rolls forward and I wave. Because one figure is sketched
inside the steam of another and down
the beach, geese lift. A couple on a bench
scatter inside their own gray mist. Earlier

it was clear and warm. I was on the phone
for hours with a woman I keep getting it wrong with.
I tried telling her which fruit I cut too early. The hard green
pulp of avocado that won’t yield its pit. That I bike

out of breath in warm months, and how empty the dark
buildings in the city, glass on the floor. What you could hear
crunch and echo like voice, but that’s a story
she knows. Everybody knows it. Instead, I tell her

I can’t help but wait. In the fog, that cruelty
waves back from his boat. He gets out and wraps
its skin like an ankle inside a ballerina’s slipper. He docks it
on a squat dolly. He walks toward me and drags

the limp thing through the sand.