The rest are mallards, but then there’s this other one. You’ve never heard your boyfriend use the word plumage before, never iridescent. You wonder how many other words he keeps hidden, waiting for an object to emerge to tote them out into the open.

Take a picture of it, he says, and you try. But it’s as if the duck knows exactly what you’re up to and doesn’t want any part.

Your boyfriend steals the camera from your hands and climbs on top of a park bench to take the photo on his own.

You wonder what words he has for that. You have a few.