Quintessence.
She found a better doctor, brought me better food, got Bill McFarland to look after me, an old friend of hers, agreeable yawning fatness, eating half our food behind my back, gossiping with Jonson’s neighbors, bobbling and drooling his words, coddling me.
When I improved she took me to the park; later, we sailed the Thames...on shore larks sang... I was grateful and tried to repay too soon...on top of rolls of canvas at the stern.
At court there was a wedding celebration and a mock battle and fireworks spilled across the river: how the fireworks turned water into sky...the guns thundered.
“For us,” she said. “For your recovery,” she said. How like a paragon...
The diamond on her velvet blouse winked at me; I put my head on her lap: pain melted: seagulls mewed as our boat rocked gently.
–S–
So, Ashley and I settled our accounts. I saw him years later and we turned our backs on one another. I suppose he was embittered at my recovery.
The best of us is both participant and confusion, but I, I am stranger because estrangements have put a lie to my living, making it stranger still.