A few events in the past week got this going. Photo is of a glass of wine I had tonight.

Death is tedious. It greets you with reminders of each time you met.

Death waits as a body turns against itself, eats an apple while seated on a windowsill choosing whether to nod at its name being called.

Death puts coarse molasses sugar over memory, then sears it brown. You take your teaspoon to crack at the glaze to let the memory breathe and stir it. The shellac cannot be broken.

Death jumps backward to parrot screams, coughs, laughs, a fond sigh, drowsy breaths that were once strong and pressed against you. It is a refrain only for you. You recall the light and who and the touch and are almost there. Almost. But they are the ripples Death has sent forward to you, and they break.

Death then leaves to sit on another windowsill, says that it will meet you again in the past, the future, or a sudden now.

You move forward, the only thing you can do, and see the compressed ripples before you, the laggard ripples in your wake, and wonder which of them Death will borrow and send to another.