For David Whyte

I wrote myself a love note and gave it away.

a bird in the bamboo

carries one seed

of memory,

small and golden,

a grain-tinctured beak

drenched

in its own morning song

light pressed

against me

I handed it to a man, in a crumpled sweat-stained shirt. He put it in his pocket.

I imagine it went through the washer.

In the dryer it turned into confetti,
a thing to throw at love

along with the name I was born with.

A conversation begins right now.