the wee dram hours

        At three in the morning a catmagic moon ascended from the forest and shone through the window. Hank was snoring in his legless rocking chair, his own legs stretched straight out. Maxine and Ling sat on the sofa, sipping single-malt from Hank's bottomless well. His wife had spread a blanket over him, a handfasting gift from all those lovely Wiccans so long ago.
         Snore on, dear Hank. I'm here now and I'll be here when you wake. It's time for another Handfasting. Just a year. One year at a time.
         "Oh, you should have seen him," she said to Ling. "A brave warrior. He stood for me in the street, blocked a police baton. Look to his shoulder, could you?"
          Ling uncovered a seriously bruised shoulder. "Not serious. He'll mend. I have medicine."
          Maxine cooed, "He told me he was Don Quixote."
          "I don't understand."
          "Just before the police swarmed all over us, he took me in his arms and said he loved me, even on a fool's errand. It was all for me."
           Ling smiled. "That's lovely. Your man is like a father to me."
          "Where is your father?"
          "With my ancestors."
          "Oh."
          "He was a poet. A good poet, I think. But unknown by most people in China. We have had many kinds of poets. Classical allusionists. Modern realists. Those that believed poetry was a tool of revolution and those that believed poetry was written for its own sake. My father was crazy. No one understood him. So he went unclassified. Which was all for the best, I think."
          "Sounds wonderful."
          "My mother escaped China and I was born in Vancouver."
          "Your father."
          "He was shot. Not for writing crazy poetry. But for drinking on sentry duty."
          "That's awful."
          Ling's face fell vacant. Then she said, "His poetry has never been translated. That's OK. I can read it whenever I wish. I have several of his pamphlets."
          "Hank tells me you are a theatre person, like Bern."
          "Not as a writer. I'm an actor."
          "What have you done?"
          "Can you imagine me as a man with a long, long ponytail? Braided like a bullwhip?"
          "I suppose."
          Ling giggled. "I played the John Lone part in an early play by Henry David Hwang. A railroad cooly who battles for the rights of Chinese immigrants in the American West."
          "I bet you kicked ass!"
          "Yup."
          Bonded, the women sipped Hank's whiskey.