Smoking, Zarathustra?

I like to keep her in a little box. A little box with tiny diamond shaped mirrors on it, and a pearl, a fake one, in the middle.

The cheap black felt is wearing off. She doesn't mind though. Because she's safe. She's safer in there.

Sometimes I let her out on the vibrations of a cello string or in the red of my pinot noir. She likes those moments. Alone.

Last Tuesday I found her sitting on my toothbrush. Waiting. As if a bus were to pick her up on my sink.

"Who are you waiting for?"

"Pandora. She's bringing her goldfish."

"Mortimer?"

We had a nice breakfast, and I put her back in her little box. She gets cold so I gave her an extra cotton ball. Just one.

Sometimes I worry about her. She doesn't have many friends and no longer finds her little mirrors enough - nor the blue-blue smoke. And her pearl is chipped as if someone took a bite.

This morning she was on my keyboard lying over F, G, H and J. Shivering.

I picked her up and went to her little box - it was a pile of ash under my bed.

She looked up at me, her lips purple and her little wings, iridescent green and orange, were glued to her body for warmth.

"I was asleep—from a deep dream I woke and swear:—The world is deep, deeper than day had been aware."

I warmed her up with my blow dryer and wrapped her in a fresh lemon rind. Since then I've let her sit on my keyboard and at times I allow her to live in my fingertips.

She likes it. So do her little wings.