Default Precision

He needs you, I heard her say. I held out

the phone, listened to the chitter of a bird.

What did she expect of me, I asked 

myself. Laparoscopic trespass using trocars

to go in and rearrange his heart?

He was trapped in how he had been trained

with beautiful unconditional

devotion. A refusal to flee

his obligations self-inflicted

self-imposed. I resisted her unstated

mandate to engage in cult conversion

therapy when he was his own cult.

Watched him reach for reciprocity

from heights improvised to retrieve first love.