SmokeLong Quarterly

Ivana and I are sitting on the stands above the lake. We’re talking about football. She’s all upset with the way our team is playing. She’s cursing, making threats and excuses, one minute she repudiates them and the next she forgives them. I am just waiting for her to take another sip of beer and all I am cheering for are those two or three drops that will slip onto her lips, moisten them, and then the gleam of the streetlight that will flicker on those lips, too, the same as it has been on the water below our feet the whole time.