as in the story a friend told about the time she wanted to kill herself. Night, late winter, wearing a raincoat over her nightgown she drove to the house that was no longer theirs. She had expectations. Him, in his man-chair watching sports, eating chili from a can— At first glimpsing him between the blinds, bare chested candlelit, she thought porn channel, masturbation, which for an instant felt erotic, but a woman’s legs were held against his chest, hips rushing, dog perched on the cushion beside a black thong—My friend in a panic, fumbled open the patio gate, vomited twice in the boxwood hedge or maybe it was the flowering quince. Later in the tub, wailing to Jesus and a different dog, she put the razor back, sick of punishing herself. It was then she heard the faint trill of a waxwing having devoured the fruit and moved on.