Dope

People were here. They have gone. A unopened bottle of wine, or better, a bottle of wine not drunk, stands close by and in the near distance a morbid relic – a collapsed headstone, actually a breadboard. Bread, olives and cheese – these are things people expect to eat, but not on separate plates. A breadboard is much more convivial. Now that my guests have descended uncertainly down the front steps, nobody can stop me listening to George’s McRae’s “Rock Your Baby” – “Woman take me in your arms, rock me baby”. I listened to that song a lifetime ago as we drove through the back blocks of Miami looking for dope. I can recall thinking that I was somehow growing up. I envisaged some kind of future, but it never happened. Nothing is ever as envisaged. No matter how closely I attend to the immediacy of my current circumstances, I am always distracted. The nights spread across the far hills.