You don't like geese. I'm like you—I get me—so I get why. I'm like you, but I like geese. We're the we who disagree on geese.

From the drainage tunnel's concrete clifftop—my legs dangle off—I see them. Three strut through the tunnel's frozen drool's dead fringe. Little one lags a bit behind. Crack bills to frigid ground I figured barren. Leave on the hand-nagging wind.

From whichever seat, you see them. One goose three times—where there's three there's thirty. Thirty of the same fat, feathery football, neck snaking into a nuisance. It contorts, beady eyes guiding mooring line into an overhand knot, tightening (you've used toothpaste before) until it litters itself. Sits in itself. Too dumb to even blink. "Chase it—flap at it," invites an old urge. "Teach it."

I can't dissuade you nor, worse, myself. I can see your vipers ripping bread from hands too kind. I can hear their honk and hiss. When I squint, and strain my ears.

Listen: at parties I'll feign to hate geese.

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