Look at his eyes, how they reflect the light cast down from the kitchen ceiling, born back from the white cabinets, shining on the spoons and glasses that he rinses in hot water. The eyes of such a man give back what they cannot keep.

His eyes have sent back everything for years, just a bit diminished, worse for wear. He remembers how he met her on a rainy day in November, saw her standing by the elevator wearing a burgundy dress and black stockings, black shoes, holding a fawn coat. Which is what he thinks about, spraying down the countertops and wiping them with paper towels.

They were not married in the height of summer, when the leaves stood out against the sky pretending to be shocked by sheer neglect. But the birds still sang, so he thought everything was fine.

He has walked out across the highway and along the edge of the hill, where the first blue flowers of spring are blooming, and now he is home. He thought he could smell the dark mushroom life under the trees; all the sweet damp death that feeds their roots. It made him feel apart from things so inevitably rotting, to be a man upright and walking on the earth. The birds singing in the branches almost made him smile.

Wishing he had an onion, he cooks a piece of chicken and eats it slowly, watching the evening news. People are dead for no reason, and he thinks the earth is far too eager to welcome back his kind. It’s a long process, the feeding of soil. It hardly seems worth the trouble to which the planet goes.