At the party fire pit, he banters with women he has known since college. Funk from big speakers, eggplant on the grill, Christmas lights strung through an avocado tree. He returns a wooden chair to an ex-girlfriend. He’s replaced her broken rung: no scars, no seams, no mismatched stain. He’s fixing a bicycle rack for another. All of his exes get along with him and each other, and years pass. Some recycle as do-overs, unable to resist a man in love with love. Before I returned, he assured me he no longer sought perfection, but I soon became too this, too that again. His twenties, thirties, forties, fifties look the same on Facebook: a musician on stage, loneliness hidden inside an upbeat bass. He scans the crowd for his next ex, unable to choose between maybe and maybe. Oh, love could never live up to the promise of those parties! Barefoot dancers, silver earrings, goblets of pinot noir, wood smoke sifted with ocean mist, moon-drenched under live oaks. published in Don't Talk To Me About Love