She says, “My body is the light.”

I ask, “How bright?”

“Brighter than you feel when you see me in the dark.”

I think she borrows lyrics for her points. I’d demand an original sentiment but I want to say I’d like a gypsy wife. I’m getting lonely in my woods and there’s no singing of any kind, much less light.

“I’ll be back.” I want to place my hand at her throat and feel her pulse, but nothing else, and so it’s best I depart.

It’s cul-de-sac quiet outside, and heavy with fumes. Smokers commune easily. They are better than church. However, their smoke tires me and I want sparkling water. There’s a walk to the corner store. I realize that I don’t know a place in the summer the way I do in the fall and winter. I see how people handle change. They forget what it was like a year ago. They gather to become warm. They cling like sleeping kittens.

I could handle a sparkling water fiend. I could drench her in sparkling water as she lays beneath sheer fabric. These decadences are peculiar until realized, then they are as expected as morning tea. Believe me.

There is still purple haze on the wooded horizon when I return to the bar. The people with whom I arrived are steeped in laughter and drink. My nose itches. I get a text telling me to come by and jam sometime. I still have that didge in my living room and should have returned it months ago.

The weight of debt wears me out.

I come home. I feed and water the little ones. I think of sheer sheets and a warm throat again, but after ten minutes I have barely enough breath to masturbate. Asphyxiation is become my home.

Here.