The old places do little but grow older. Stuck as they are in stucco and fading pink tiles, time does not lend them majesty. Each season is another curling flake of paint, another molding patch on the ceiling, another reason to apologize. Sweat streaks clean paths on dusty faces. We enter the old places and shake like showered puppies, our teeth flash white and strong as we grin at each other. Mugs of glass still opaque with frost from the freezer fill with drink. We grin and toast the sun for setting yet again, we toast each other, and we toast the old places for suffering our kind for another blood-warm evening.


2. In heartless moments I seek completion. In moments loving I seek atonement. All the other moments I spend seeking the exact point where I end and something else, anything else, begins.

On good days there is a fuzziness to my features, like frayed silk or fat fluffs of unpicked cotton.
Other days my borders are strong; thickly outlined. Sounds are muted. Even air must struggle through.

3.