1st Exhalation

One edge is torn like an envelope and out falls the truth about my past. Many pieces of the dark have coalesced over time to produce an image on this table, under a desklamp, interrogating puzzle pieces washed in light. The moon is round the corner like a birthday balloon, the ghost of a party.

The salads are wilting. The baby clothes of the death and decay are one year old. The stars mutually exclusive.

I see my head in the shower, washing up, getting warm, running the water over my hand to adjust the temperature, and singing, humming, muttering to myself in the ocean of steam.

So all stories have a soothsayer. In the darkness of my heart I know I have terrible news.

But the dog sleeps on the sofa undisturbed, and lifts its head only when called. But the cat stalks freely on the bookshelves.

I take an extra long shower, just to be sure. Someone knocks at the door and I say my opening line, then retract it, cross it out with a pen in a notebook I leave within reach on the edge of the sink.

Where to begin, where to begin? I am already drying off as I drip in the water, close the shower curtain, and open it again, stepping out with one foot then the other.