Compliment

After a shower and a light breakfast the next morning on July 5 — the ninety-sixth day, but who was keeping count? — I left the apartment at four on a rare morning with no headache and no recollection of any dreams. No one was there when I arrived. It was my turn to wait for the former beautiful stranger, my sunrise companion. On a bench, I lit my first cigarette of the day. Inhale, hold, exhale. A smoke at Alexandra Basin, windless under a cloudy sky. I took an old notebook out of a small backpack and jotted a quatrain.