We grill chicken, com, sweet potatoes. There are only two of us but we cook for many more. You cut your toenails, drink ice water, eat popsicles. I smoke cigarettes. The mosquitoes swarm. Marriage, I say: a death sentence. And then Beck comes on the XM Radio. You squeeze my arm and I ask if you want to have sex later and you say yes. You made a promise to God and everyone else, I used to say, before. But now I don't mention God. And I don't mention everyone else because they're not here. It's just the two of us, in this house, and the dog in the backyard, awaiting our scraps.