Let me sing you a song of winding highways and wild honey, let me tell you about the graveyard on the big hill and all the old friends we pass on the way to the top of it. There is a silence here that you just can’t get in the city. This house, once of children, and now just yours. Did you ever imagine yourself all alone out here? When the phone line goes down and the heavy snows come rolling in, did you ever imagine you could be so solitary? When I think of you, I think of heat, of cicadas, of wrought iron bedframes. Lived woman, do you ever think about him? Of course, you do.

I want you to tell me when it stops hurting. When the grief blossoms into nostalgia. But I don’t think you know. No pictures of him. His name never spoken. Does he sit on your tongue like a sea stone? Does he follow you like a dog? There are strays out here, and sometimes they come home with you whether you know it or not.