December

These are the days and nights after the fire. Each one seems improbable. Though a little less than the last. In the old hotel down by the sea wall you grow sick while I open care packages. You are consumed.

Through the air shaft we can hear a woman singing. Soft, in a glass without ice cubes. There is snow falling outside. Now it's melting. Now it's falling again.

The first night we pushed the two beds together. Apart they were too small. Together they were the plains of Abraham, if his plains were large. We went out the next afternoon and came back to find the maids had made the beds as though they were one. They know about the fire. They'd build more walls for us if they could.

Outside the tide waits, can't remember if it was coming in or going out. Between the rocks, the crabs sit mute and scuttleless. Waiting.