Easter Lilies

I drop a sugar cube into the glass. watch it fizz up through the vodka and champagne. you give me that grin. we argue over some paperback. the room fills with the smell of garlic and damp masonry.

the sauce is bubbling on the stove. muck spitting over the rim. it hits the iron ring with a wet hiss. on the table, two glasses with swans etched into the sides. the cabernet is breathing. we’re hitting the champagne first. why not start the evening drunk.

then the room shifts under the weight of the liquor. the steam is a grey fog over some village in Northern Ireland. black hedgerows closing in. Easter lilies splitting the mud. rain that never stops.

I wrap myself in a country I’ve never seen. your country. adopting ghosts to hide from my own. then the hissing stops. the sauce catches on the bottom of the pot. the kitchen comes back. flat. quiet. the chair across from me is empty. only one glass on the table. half-drained. the swans look at nothing.

you were never in the room. you haven’t been here for months.

the chair stays empty.
black crust on the iron ring,
the kitchen is cold.