“I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder”

My aunt showed me her flower garden. Most of the blooms by now have seen their day. They left their leaves. One particularly ugly genre called “Love in the Mist” guarded their onion bulbous like the fossilized light of an angler fish, haunting the creeping thyme.

I like my men the way I like my wine – raised with plenty of chilly rain. Un connoisseur dirait qu’il est fermé, a taste particular to reason that sits close to the bones a skin taunt only just covering… thought gymnast… la danse de polyether noire. (When I’d tasted, finally, Bourgogne rouge warmed in the palm of my hand, the heaviness of his thoughts threatened to pull me under. The air will continue to change him [equations of alcohol and oxygen] so I could drink forever never knowing the profounder.)

Truth is this (give your heart to god they told me, he’s the prince in this story they said, now just you try segregating your heart from your sex) he kinda looks like Jesus in Anglo Bible cinema, if man playing Jesus was a brooding boheme, dressed like a gentleman with ironic Nietzschian thoughts. (Irony: insisting god is dead when man is god).

He travels a lot, but has hid his roots well so he can come back from them later.

Le première fois que j’ai goûté de Bourgogne I got sick. My skin was red raw. Maybe there was a toxin in the tannins.

Repris, mon corps le reconnu: “Go ahead,” the white blood cells said, “allow that hand hold your torso.” Il ne peut pas me tuer.

I climb into bed, climb mind you, the feet of the four poster are lifted. My aunt has always been a bit of a queen however long ago that line of royalty was left in the wuthering heights of Normandy.