Faithful and Virtuous Night

He raised his glass and turned it upside-down. This is your purity, he said, this is your perfectionism— The glass was empty; it left no mark on the tablecloth.

I write about you all the time, I said aloud. Every time I say “I,” it refers to you.

Above our heads, the cherry blossoms had begun to loosen in the night sky, or maybe the stars were drifting, drifting and falling apart, and where they landed new worlds would form.