the verdict, about time, no more dry and warm she who had been urging me to attend to be together again instead gave me the brush off with no explanation (and still none) but another led into the time and place of a heavy collision, no, things weren’t collecting dust on a shelf or even a one-night stand, these rejections add up without candlelight, fancy linen, or the wine and here it’s gone forecasting brutal winter and not much in the way of mountaineering