Three Sentences

1. You lay on your side, facing away, the mattress moving slowly under the weight of our breath, as I counted the knuckles of your spine, and listened to the sparrows making their spring home in the roof’s gutter. 2. Listless as hovering smoke, with nervous words molesting my tongue like an exploded taste bud, I lingered still, on the bar stool, watching mirrored reflections, while shouldered beside people I knew would never be my true friends. 3. The thin light of morning sifted through the windbare arms of the maples and then pooled on the sidewalk in ways that seemed too simple and serene for me to fully understand.