A house in the mountains where I spend two weeks alone with Diego is the answer. We paint and write, and near evening I make pasta and we drink wine from the cellar. His lips are blushed with rose. The Benny Goodman record scratches its melody in the front room, as the sun settles below a ripple of hills. I remember the light licking the water of the harbor back home.
Boats rise and fall, as the lake breathes like someone drifting off to sleep.
I shut the screen door and go to the kitchen. There are dishes to wash and then some proofs to correct. Soon the music of crickets will fill the starlight sky. I will not press the words of belonging from the harbor of dark clouds, nor will I ask that the ice of days melt so that I may drink more than my share. The comets keep their cold distance.