I enjoy the silence that cushions

the hum of my made-for-one

refrigerator. I walk to the kitchen

and pour a coffee, slap the dildo

that’s stuck to the wall.

I’d fuck it today if I weren’t running a fever.

A ghost at the window, I watch the pigeons wait for tortillas from the neighbor across the street. The woman goes to her rooftop everyday at four and spreads scraps so all can eat. Towels hang on the line to dry; the air smells of Suavitel and Zote. They flap around, she goes inside, they gorge until satisfied then leave for home under other rooftop water tanks; and all return the very next day because that is the law of her land.

In the rainy season, the thunder rumbles from the Northeast near the god mountains. The low groans move me. I go into a trance as the light shifts from obnoxiously sunny delight to a deeper shade that isn’t so much a color as it is a mood. When the weather whips me up some low-pressure, I whip out an obsidian wand of pleasure. Our storm systems unite (but not today, I am sick).

I am alone and the firework bursts at mid afternoon as a neighborhood celebrates a saint. I’ve got mine around me. Cards with pious faces, prayers for support; reminders of the times when the only hope I had was found in external forces for good because inside, I was so bad.

An impossible case.

But that was then, two, four, thirteen years ago and all that time before, other lives…yet somehow, it was only a wink of an eye from a stranger. Dark matters.

I used to live with a man I called my husband.

Today, I live alone as I have for four years.

(God willing for many more til death do I part.)

I’ll take my wedding ring to the pawn shop this week.

The rain is falling.

Sex dog is whining outside in the neighbor’s patio.

Everyday he wants to come inside.

I close the window–silence.

This is my bed where I sleep.

I love something nameless, without form.

I am lucky, or maybe just very stubborn in my pursuits of