Our next door neighbors have a grand piano. They keep it in the middle of the living room and when I walk upstairs to go to bed I can see the outline, the slim bones of steel and wire keeping a chic, stark quality to its structure. I'm lonesome, but can understand a grand piano's loyalty, I know why they keep it. The window into their house is a television of drinks, the skinny colored high ball glasses in perfect asymmetry. Everyone in pointed little triangle shoes, coy and light under those thin slacks. A room filled of satisfying sounds, clinking glass and sharp clicks on those shoes. Their laughter makes no sound to me and I stumble up to my bed, my feet come off in granite and the heat rises from Steve's chicken in the kitchen to make the house smell like seasoned asphalt. But salvation comes in the window unit and cold showers and clean laundry. My jeans were a bit damp and folded they'll be a bit stiff for the morning, but if I wear them over my swim trunks for the ride to the lake, my favorite pair will be stretched out to a good fit. Here's hoping. I'll stick my little wet locked head out in the middle of the water and with a mouth raw from lake water and puckered from grapefruit, I'll say aloud truths as they come to me. My loves, my guilts and the laws I make for myself as I go along. I'll manifesto them to God as if waiting for approval, but I can't remember the last time I asked permission for anything, but that will change.

May I love you? I'm asking this time.