Is it? Oh, I’m sorry. Sometimes it feels as if my fingers lock up, and I’m alone on the bed, cupping my rage like my stepfather did, or sleeping off the annoyances.

It’s the ease that does it. How easy it is for everyone else. The sky grays out, as if disabled; clicking on that sky brings you nothing. Then rain furs the bare trees, fuzzing the edges off everything, and it’s too cold to think. When will Winter leave us alone, or beat us up?

I like one or the other. Not both.

Walking from one room to the next, holding in front of her the copper rods, waiting for them to cross over water, over pregnancies, over the dead and their awkward ashes. In this box, note how your memories curl at the edges, licked by invisible fire, but slowly, almost imperceptible.

It would be a whole lot simpler if we just disappeared. I’d never have to bloat and blue in an August cold; I’d never have to serrate to dust, to become aloof to changing. A current of everything happening always smothers our corposes. Always. they’re in the way.

She remains very calm while addressing me.