Got work off and have four days together, roiling in the heat, cooking steaks. Spending most of the time at her place, densely windowed and framed high-ceilinged in halfhearted Texan Fachwerk. I wake up before her and wait and study the black freckles on her ear and long neck mottled with hot sleep blush. She rolls over to me, breath sweet, blearily pawing, hair the color of rusted wrought iron splayed on linen pillowcase. We make yaupon tea and bring it back to bed and lay around in slatted sunshine and fuck and laugh at the dog until we shower. She says I don’t have to get out of the water to pee. In the car I bite a warm nectarine into slick chunks and wrap them in paper-thin prosciutto and feed them to her while she drives late afternoon taking me to someone’s house. She walks around like a colt in a kitchen I don’t know, bluish crescent bruise on her calf flashing every couple of turns at me. I milk it for every ounce. This union is a late summer comet in streaking crescendo. It ends furiously.
