The Map Of Lungs

The old woman slept on that foggy morning of fossilized snow, fearful in her turning, and lace cloth crept barefoot down the halls, through the doors, across the Persian rugs where the cats curled

The sun was banished and we waited in our dreams for coffee and hot wine

My happiness blinked as I rolled to touch your warm skin, you were an ocean where the mountains rose beneath and the skeleton fish darted through hearts forlorn, in never times, hours unkept, and I journeyed there, sighting upon your star-shaped pores, drinking at your eyes, never to live like that again, and I saw your map of lungs at the bottom of the sea

At the foot of our bed were invisible hands stretching from a dead fire, the cold ash of an old king, and the night was still sleeping in the corner … last night … when we talked of the future and woven time, and I said, love was without direction, lost keys, the beautiful horse on the hill, and you asked, was that really good enough

In silence we made love, I needed to show you, and we fell inside, where life resided next to death’s first stir, and as we shuddered, there was nothing to be done except paint with bright colors

Everything down the hall, through the doors, where the cats slumbered in circles, and outside the snow’s face twisted and the wind pushed lines against the fence, fossils piled high against the wooden slat, and it built, bone upon bone, on that cold morning of dreams, where my sort of happiness was enriched in ways unbeknownst to you, gifted by your deeply hidden lungs

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