I liked to put my nose in your mouth and nudge your last fragments of teeth apart so that I could better get at the clues in there, from the broken edges all the way down to your liquored insides, the facts and the signs and the omens of you: smell of cider, rum, and brandy, ether on a handkerchief, the sticks you chewed when you were hungry, instead of eating, or bored, instead of living; smell of deep wet moss and brine from the sea and from your hobby of pickling yourself, smell of kosher dill half-sours and the cockles nicked from the shop, the smell of creaking barrels in ships’ holds, of bonfire and trash fire, smell of lit incense you swallowed and then released in wisps from your throat, smell of candy and nuts, and old rugs before a beating
Then there was something else I recognized, the certainty of your end, that every kiss foretold on the rich savor of your alcoholic breath: dark rot and drip, the flyblown suicide behind a deadbolt
