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SANGRIA She lifts the bottle to her chest and pours as if the wine had been waiting in her heart, denying itself the memory of air, the taste of a cool, thin glass, a lower lip, a tongue stained red with its longing for a kiss of raspberry and smoke. She slices oranges, lemons, nectarines. She opens their round bodies, their sun-colored skins. She opens the windows, lets the scent of anise and marigold pour in from the garden. A distant fire, full of juniper smoke, warns in the hills, channeled like blood from a heart to the tips of fingers—a charred touch staining the landscape black. What she wants is a taste of flame, but sips a spoonful of sugar and wine to taste what is missing—champagne, ice, a letter opened alone each day at noon, the words stained into paper with creases like canyons—years pouring over the bluffs into silence, into the heart of this room, where a woman sits at a table to smoke. The table, like her hair, her eyes, is the color of smoke. She tears the letter, places a piece on her tongue to taste its bitterness—more bitter than glaciers, their heartless bodies shrinking and swelling untouched. She opens a drawer in the table, finds her deck of cards and pours the suits from one hand to the other, letting her fingers stain  the edges with wine, while outside a burning horizon stains the dry fig orchards and air with wine-colored smoke. She thinks of a game her mother taught her. She pours herself a drink from the pitcher. The soaked fruit tastes like dusk—she swallows with her lips slightly open. The players’ aim was either to avoid the hearts completely, at every turn and glance, or win all hearts. She places the cards, the letter, her hands on the table, its stain worn down to a splintered surface. She finds the queen, opens the letter, drowns them in sangria. Her lungs, full of smoke, constrict and shudder like a butterfly. The air tastes of summer constellations that have no more light to pour down. She rises to open the window further, let in the smoke. Fire pours into the house. The soaked letter stains the wine. No need to taste it again. She knows it by heart.  ...

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