He comes into the bedroom and thumps me three times on the shoulder. It’s his way of telling me he’s going to sleep. I reach over in the darkness. His spine is in my hands, his mouth is reluctant, and I’m sleepy. His skin is very cool. The pillows bunch up like a cloud between us. We are Tarot card lover.  I tell him that I want to **** him.
Later on I watch him slink away to the bathroom. He is so beautiful in the light of the doorway with his hand reaching out to guide him - my God, I can hardly stand it.
There is a glow, the bed rocks, I smell soap.

It is the day after the funeral and my sister is with me. I’m drinking Covonia straight out of the bottle.
       “I wish you’d come home with me.” She says. “You don’t want to be hanging around here.”
I wonder to myself how I’m doing this. I haven’t gone upstairs yet. I’m too tired to be mad, too tired to be suicidal, too confused. I breathe out, swallowing hard, my head jumbled, and I say:

       “In another universe I suppose this hasn’t happened.”

A post-it note on the kitchen memo board reads: WHAT IS TIME?

I wake up in the garden. The wisteria hovers over me like the ****** Mary. The wisteria was a present from Dee’s mother, except she didn’t call it wisteria, she called it ‘Bethany’s Flower’ because it had first been grown by great aunt Bethany over one hundred years ago. The wisteria is sky blue, passed down through the family like a blue-eyed gene.
I stumble into the house and shamble upstairs. Maria is in my bed - a **** vision, a lovely blur. The mirror laughs at me as I pull at my eyelids, staring into myself. My eyes have a sort of skin on them, a dull film, like two brown bottles left to collect dust in the cellar.
“Morning.” Maria says.
“Morning.” I say, breaking away from the mirror.
“Where did you go?”
“Nowhere.” I grab my mobile from the bedside. “Excuse me a minute, I need to phone someone.”
I go back into the garden and dial.
“Dan?”
“Good morning arsehat.” He laughs. “Hungover much?”
“Yeah. Listen, Dan-“
“Maria still there?”
“Yeah she is. Listen Dan…”
“What happened with you two last night?”
“I’m not sure. Listen Dan – this is going to sound stupid, but can ketamine turn you blind?”
“What?”
“Ketamine. Can it turn you blind?”
“****. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Ok. See, I think I might need to see a doctor. It’s my right eye. My right eye.” I sit down on the white chair, holding on. “I can’t see a ******* thing.”

I am back in the old house, sat in the garden on a white chair. I am barely awake and a cigarette fizzes between my fingertips, turning into a long column of ash.
I stayed away from this house for over two years. I stayed away for lots of reasons. When people ask me why, I say ‘too many memories’ and they know not to press me for details. What an excuse! ‘Too many memories’. How tragic. How mysterious. A house as full as a brain, abandoned for knowing too much.
Memories are the stuff we are made of. It is impossible to have too many of them.
I sit on this white chair, and the house nudges my seahorse brain. All the candles of my mind are lit.
My cigarette burns out.

in the back of Joanna's Volvo, she devours me -
she tells, her full mouth, that her specialty is geography

she's going in -
and biology.  deep.

she wants no church to confess, her wet lips to mine is enough to tell / for this story:

encyclopedia before butterfly
the chrysalis dissolves  

a moth, a mess
her mouth of silk.

a pretty place to fall apart -
Joanna says, between breaths not sure mine or hers:
she needs me to be one

I don't see her anymore. She transfers quickly thereafter.

Breathe, chrysalis breathe.

they spin but do not drop away
I think of her.  inside, soft mass and waiting.

she never told me how they fight their way out -
what cuts through the thick?

she never told:

how they must feel, spread and magnificent, when they'd been ready to die

how cold and bright, the sudden belonging.

Laying next to you is like sliding a cotton crew cut over bare skin - and looking into your eyes is a lot less like homework - trying to add and subtract all the ifs and ands and buts - to get an answer. It's more like looking through old photo albums and seeing how far you've come... While the neighbor's dog barks and car doors slam only dozens of feet from the bed in which we lay for hours - tasting each other's tendencies - both spoken and other forms of oral. And I just want to bask in a moment with you - but moments bleed into minutes bleed into memories of clock faces and LCD screens for time checked - time lost? But I wouldn't mind being lost a time or two with you.

She said I was her second favorite.
Not that she'd met a better man,
but that way she left room for

improvement.

She wanted to believe in fidelity
like someone wants to believe
in Jesus or pure justice.

She asked my complex thoughts--
the wordless ones. I asked for an explanation.
She only stared, and I realized I
couldn't tell if her eyes were
green or blue.

She stabbed her ice with a straw
and told me to stop calling it love--
what we were making. That was
fine. I had a few other terms in mind.

She said nightlife and fanfare were
for homosexuals. So, we spent
most evenings eating Chinese takeout
in a rented room.

She vomited on the Fourth of July,
while fireworks erupted. I sat in
a lawn chair, and tried to remember
how she looked in that black A-line dress.

She needed to know my plans for our future.
I said there were endless open doors in front of us.
She said she only heard the sound of a door
closing behind.

She was a free spirit. And I "put it on trial."

She said she needed me

to change the channel.

She said when we ended -- and we would end --
I'd learn a valuable lesson:
a woman is the only creature
that doesn't have to die to haunt you.

I shoud've told the bartender to tie me to the last working pay phone.
But I didn't. I let her introduce herself. Sadie, she said, like The Beatle's song.

I'm hard to forget, so I asked, What's your motto?

She breathed in reverse. She looked at the door. She was past mottos.

It was Josh, right?

Yeah.

Let me tell you something. I'm the bad, **** ***** that's gonna wreck your health.

And she did.

Every weekend for 105 weekends. I opened her up like a paycheck.
I spent her on a big brass bed.
I spent her on glass tile.
I spent her on the kitchen island.
The Japanese table.
The water lily pond.

Her brother Frank or Gary or Marvin---some American classic---kept us
horizontal with white whiskey from his personal still.
Personal still.
And there is a house in New Orleans,
but there's another one in Colorado Springs,
one you should be wary of.

I shoud've told the bartender to tie me to the last working pay phone.
But I didn't. I let him tell me about his dream. My name is Jack, he said, as in Jumpin' Jack Flash.

Like the Rolling Stones' song?
Like the Stones' song, man.

You were in it.

Four white girls shared one mic. Karaoke night.

You were in my dream. Are you listening to me? I'm gonna say it anyways.
I only had one eye, but I could see you. Seen you plain as day.
You were scared of me. As you should be. We were on the coast.
No, I don't know which one. I saw that thought on your forehead.
It was a dream. Anyway, you were holding a pen. A giant pen.
And I asked for your name.

I lifted my drink from the makeshift napkin coaster. Pulled a pen out of my coat pocket.
Straightened out the napkin. I scribbled Nobody. Handed it to him. And aimed myself toward the interstate.

I shoud've told the bartender to tie me to the last working pay phone.
But I didn't. She had one helluva an afro. Her name was Katrina, not like any song, like the hurricane.

My skin tastes a little like coffee, Katrina said.

I like coffee.

You wouldn't like me.

Probably not. But I've been lost in this bar forever. I could change my mind.

No, sweetie. Forever ain't that long. Just ask my ex-husband.

Katrina paid for her drink. Asked me if I'd like the change.

Yeah, I'll take it.

I called my buddy Chris back in Oklahoma, but he didn't answer.
I called my buddy Ben back in Oklahoma, but he didn't answer.
Sam. Sarah. Brooks. Nothing. Silence.

Barkeep (I always wanted to say it), I don't think your phone is working.

It works. You gotta remember kid. You're on Rocky time.
There's an hour, every night,
where you're the only person you know that's awake.