Intermission

It's all the same,
love.
Yet here we are
with our peaches
and cream champagne.
Candles enough to
resuscitate the dead.
Moonlight rains down
like a poem.

If there must be
a secret to all of this
fuss, let it be, simply
the thought, that we
are not yet corpses
nor have we lived
too many bitter years.

So, our love leans out
sometimes and neither one
of us believes in angels.
Still, the ground swells
when it rains
and every morning,
a dozen little birds sing.

And from the bedroom window
we can watch the sun rise
like a soldier charging
the field or a shaman
anesthetizing the earth
with words.

I live today. I remember
now. We both live today
and what are we supposed
to do with this knowledge,
but live beyond the pain
of the past. No, I do not
mean to insinuate repression
nor create any violations
within the term love,
as if four letters could
ever contain every shadow,
each nuance, the ups and downs
within a blind spot.

Tomorrow is Sunday.
We should compose a new version
of things. Suppose,
on a night like this,
so bright a laymen can hardly
acknowledge, we didn't do
a damn thing
but kiss.

Now there is love.
Call it death by lips.