We arrive at this pocket of a park, tucked between the flow of a river and the hard stand of industry. As if a floodgate opens, the hungry, hopeful, greeting committee pours over the grassy mounds. Quack and feathers, hurried bodies bob back and forth. Obedient to the signs that say, “Don’t feed the waterfowl,” we disappoint them every day. Mallards, neon green heads, and puffed-up breasts of brown. The uniformed army reluctantly parts to let us pass.

The one I watch for wanders on the periphery, bewildered. I anthropomorphize, I know. But I have been watching these ducks for a year. One third of an act, he was. The blue-billed boys we called them. Triplets. Almost identical, taller than the rest, bills tinted blue. They ran side-by-side, in parallel lines. Like synchronized swimmers, they stopped on cue and turned, three heads pointed in one direction. As if hatched from one shell. We joked they had one brain among them. I talked to them often, cautioned them against the street. They didn’t seem too smart.

Then one day, there were only two, still in step with each other. Two-thirds of a brain, we laughed. 
 
And then—one third. He scurries and mumbles. Loneliness on webbed feet. I think he’s hunting. I think he’s haunted. Though, with this brain of mine I think is whole, I know. I’m the one who is hunting, the one who is haunted. I want them back. I want them all back.