I’ll set a path of bread crumbs

for us to find our way back.

You can be my brother or

my lover or my father or

my dead grandmother who

fed me hard candy from crystal bowls

–kept purse peppermints.

I know that the breeze and the gasps

of gods will take the bread crumbs away–

Scatter them to seas like wedding petals

or business cards.

If you are my brother you will eat

the trial behind us because he likes rye bread.

If you are my lover you will

wonder where the crumbs led and collect

the remaining pieces in a back pocket–

trying to fasten a topoiographic map of a person

who keeps stale bread to pin-down memories.

If you are my father you will

tell me that snapping turtles ate

the bread crumbs– and that there

was never really a path. I had just

made up my past from images

in other people’s photo albums.

If you are my grandmother

you will say it’s good that I dropped

the bread crumbs. It is good to remember

something– even if there’s nothing

left to remember.

And she’ll crunch ice cream cones in

the corner at night

in the chair from her old apartment– thinking about

sourdough and English muffins.

If you are me you will leave bread crumbs.

You will get lost

on the way to gingerbread houses.

Climb in ovens.

Sleep in warmth.

set a path of bread crumbs

for us to find our way back.