#6

The aples haunt the maphid tree. They're an overdetermined plague. In the study, by the mirror, where the author poses, limbs akimbo, and goodnight. The tea cools unnoticed by the radiator. Riven, a winter varietal. A digestive aid. One's memory is a snowglobe bought at the giftshop of a lighthouse one read of once in a novel. It is a collector's privilege. I've given, at least, you that.

Every book, a gift. Every gift, a parasite. And you, who huddled in the empty black of a building recalcitrant to warmth, choral works the wallpaper distempered. How many nights spent cramped in blankets, the future mortgaged to the past? In my novel I paint you crying, a spotlight your fragility flickering dimly through obscuro. And yet the termites burrow. They're carving a space for nothingness.

I wanted to say what I said. At the site I meant to ward. To think, of thou and thou, to separate the two. Collect and restitute. To slave for what was lost, the child always running to the man. Remember, at any cost. Posit an exit wound. Lie, in love, with another. The due of thine, down payment for the mortise. Your realtor, a ladybug, her eyes, each one, an abbess, who will swallow up your past.