Dim coals are coaxed to flame with fuel and a little patience. It will be nearly 80 in here soon. The smell of wood mingles with strong tea scents: ginger, skullcap, cinnamon, honey and pomegranate.
Your chilly hand slips under my shirt. I turn from the dishes to face you, we kiss. “Best to stock up, in these, the end times.” More gentle kisses, quite like falling snow. You peel off your coat and hang it on the back of a chair.
Outside a thick curtain of clouds has drawn across the moon as winter’s first breath bounds from barren limbs to bramble, twisting, creaking and bringing blackness that only a forest knows to be.
No world till morning.