The Area Between Two Places

His smile is a single metal cuff hanging from the rafter of a serviced apartment moth balled by a corporation located in a post box shadowed by palm trees and sea planes. Only in the west is his body a war ship, now across the border, it is a skiff. He tells her his home is a monument to pain and she sees his toenails are brittle as dead bamboo. Later she watches him sleep in the shape of a question mark and when the morning answers, he wishes he hadn't asked.