Never mind.
Never mind the bedbugs flopping around the burlap sack
by your special reading nook. It stings. But you never pay any mind to the bag half-full
of unroasted coffee beans or the bitten marks on your right forearm,
for you were busy firing questions at the burning bonfire, asking,
“how could I possibly tend to the fire as the fire would tend to I?”
With bouts of fleeting winds of warmth,
it protected me, privately. In its little mansion, I was folded in so tightly
that the chills and the frosts of November night air came to bite and turned away.
But when the blizzard settled over us and no amount of grease
or whiskey could set the flames ablaze again,
I was found shivering once again,
while you were still kindled by your queries.
Never mind my absence. Never mind.