Summer

The host's girlfriend is barely seen. She's busy giving away wild animals to reluctant guests. I agree to take a snake-dog, maybe an electric eel, but when I feel its sharp teeth in my shoulder, I start to worry about the future welfare of our fragile cat, the precarious order of our rented home, and remember I am supposed to be looking for someone.... A half-wolf, half-elephant cracks through the walls of the peeling wallpapered bedroom where my former student in a fuschia robe and curlers sits by a lighted make-up mirror. The shadows off elongated fake eyelashes are as dark as the branches of an evening tree. The hovering body of a fiery sparrow is almost transparent, like flute music or an idea. I turn my back and finally, I spot her my friend, the host. She's sipping rum punch from a martini glass; her whole body appears to be smiling, glowing, and I don't know what to think. I know she doesn't drink, hasn't in decades, and I wonder what's suddenly changed, but then I remember the cancer won, my friend isn't actually here, there is no party, there was never a house.