We walk the cat, we walk to the bakery, we come home and sit, we sit in the living room and we look at the crumbs that have landed on our socks and forgive ourselves for this disarray, and we tell each other old jokes that still work, that work each time, and we tell each other stories but we don’t do it alone. I start with a thing, like, That day the hermit woke up with a fly in his gullet and you say a thing like, And then he recalled that he could still feel so what did it matter, and then we regroup down on the couch, make each other firm, and you brush the snarls out of my hair in the back where I can’t reach anymore and me, I prop myself up on firm pillows in a way that I remind myself is fetching to you— and we stay like this the whole day through, until night comes and by 10:00, out come the foxes, and we call in the cat, and every time, every time we call her, we just hope she’s there.