Over the house the night sky wheels and turns all winter long, even behind the day.

Kalene and I shared a room until she died. Her face at night was an index of different twitches and pulses. She made noises when she slept. The flickers of her breath. Moans. Sucking at the space between her teeth. It was the background to all the dreams I had when I was little, the sounds behind the life I had when I slept.

When I was twelve I went to department stores to marvel at the different cloths evening gowns were made out of. I thought my life was a cloth like that, but finer and more magical. Now my life is frayed with fat, worm-sized seams. Thinking about the sounds she made when she slept, I try to make my love a thread instead of a rip. I try to tie my life together.