Her ex-boyfriend was fresh
from jail- boarded in a halfway house, halfway up
my block. The smoke from my cigarette swallowed
us, slow like a constrictor working scales around
a meal, as we consumed each other's story on the low
steps in front of my building. He left her without
warning and found himself in the county's cold
gut. A man can get ground to memory in there, she says.
I nod, turning my face from her lighting up her own
cigarette. She wants him back, even after the fists
thrown into her stomach