my ex wanted a pet pig, so we imagined it.
even gave the thing a name, rubbed its invisible head
before bed—
years later, on a rooftop, my ex confesses
she cheated on me: the city stretching out before us
filled with brightly locked doors.
the harm’s far enough away i don’t notice it.
a footnote swallowed ages ago. the pig would have been
beautiful—then grown too large for our small home,
would have needed more than us kids could offer
and then what needle would have ended us all
sobbing in the animal doctor’s office,
blaming each other for the holes in the wall.
i’m glad we split when we did like a book
of hypothetical names. glad to have only suffered
in the imaginable ways. o Rainbow Queen
Encyclopedia, in some other world you are still
a pig-child dancing through immaterial fields
beheading tulips, snout rooting out heaven.
better to have only existed for a time in the imagination—
to never have to die.