where’ve you been

if you listen to your illness
and its tracing a line
drink the water from the temple
and hear mistakes in the chimes-KJV

I wrapped the russets in foil.  I pricked my thumb with the fork I was stabbing them with.  Avril lie on the couch, inconsolate, dejected. I looked to the bottle.  It stood on the counter with its staid black letters embossed on thick-green glass. It reflected a prism and a talisman on our dark day.  The oven was giving off the only heat in the cold apartment.  An eerie wind blew through the ginkgo outside.
I infused the potatoes with rosemary and pale ale.  I cut up two Maine apples and fried a couple of eggs.  I sucked the blood from my thumb while she lay on the couch, drunk and starving, watching TV shows on her iPad.  We sat down to eat but she barely ate.
We were out at the lake in late afternoon.  We were the only ones walking down the wooded path.  The twigs snapped and crunched beneath our feet.  The light was coming down through the dying red, yellow, and purple leaves.  Darkness came and I lost her.  Darkness came and I lost Avril out at the lake.
I am at Camilla’s.  I pour two from the bottle of breakup whisky with only 5 minutes of Halloween left.  We sat on her red velour couch in the yellow lamp light.  Her eyes demurred hazel, opaque.  I stuck my tongue in her mouth, it was November 1st and the whisky was gone.  Camilla put down her iPad and mixed vodka with Italian soda.  The white cubes turned the milky liquid in a thick crystal glass.
I am out at the lake and on the wooded path again.  I can taste the blood from my pricked thumb and I smell sage burning and smokes coming down the wind.  Avril turns on her heels, somewhere there, and her face is anemic and blue.

I wake on our bed filled with books open face down.  The smell of  lilac from your white neck and sage is in the air.  There is a cool, dark space between where we lay.  Outside the wind bats against the huge panes.  Charles the Maine Coon appears in the doorway and his eyes demure hazel, opaque.
“What is it?,” you ask, barely awake and still dreaming.
“Nothing,” I whisper.  ”I’m here.”