I. on either side of the street rise townhouses of granite veined with ivy windows glitter roofs trimmed with stalactites of ice a copse of trees slashed with shadows
flowers of lamplight bloom blue winter sky pales to dawn boots skid over the gilded snow the streetlamps blink off a black thread of crows rises at the window the dripping row of candles gutters out wax pools on the scarred wooden desk dawn glows around the edges of the velvet drapes ruby & wavering & vast
II. i wish i could wake my love who slumbers need to feel that pulsing there those wings taking flight the treelimbs shift fireflies, treetops, wild skies flagstones sodden with pools of rain the wind breathes, the echo of the sea in a shell alcoholic haze in the jeweled room the air heavy with the odor of churches the musk of flesh & sleep-breath red wine & clove smoke air brittle against my skin
on the bed with her velvet blankets strewn in heaps we wrestle throw each other against the wall buck & claw & bite drawing blood & bruises black & blue as the sky now, four a.m. unafraid to cry aloud,
a room of night walls of grass and sky ceiling filled with stars a green field somewhere and our red bed there in the center no one else for miles around we could scream then cry cry cry songs of fingers, hands, tongues, thighs breast to breast, blood to blood limp for days afterwards unable to crane our throbbing necks right or left without pain & remembering