My forest home teeters on top of a long thin tree in the middle of a frozen lake and you crash on my dumpy ragged couch and speak at me like a wax cylinder, hissing and croaking with time spent apart. You test the musculature of the pillows, browbeating them with your back and shoulders, and make my humble breakfast nook your confessional, but my priestly robes are French terry and my vocation static. The Church of the Bent Antenna has a congregation of one, not two.
You speak in a tongue I used to recognize. You barely say hello and refuse to say goodbye. It's a liturgy of ciphers. I finish my dry toast and BBQ beans and start the conversation over. This has never been a conversation. It's a bullhorn pointed at the radio. I offer you the last of the coffee but you're off the stuff. How can I help? You can't help. Why ask for help? It becomes your failure rather than mine.
