and when in love do we generate self? a child
asleep on a staircase

who we tiptoe past, careful to speak
in whispers. when did we love? and when did we

share the countless steps
toward sainthood,
tied in matrimony tied
between us. And where

in those binding shelters have we
placed our foundations -- between walls
or collapsed in silence?

Because nothing makes sense to a woman
she sits and stares at windowpanes,
a multitude of droplets;
skipping spaces with her fingers
she smears across a name --

and because all things make sense to a man,
he takes one road to work, one road home
and each stop along the way is spent in
building a place to go, go --
a place to sign in turn, and sign
a name.

there is a body eroding inside of me, rotting
out my mouth

but i do not think, no matter how many times
my internal dwelling collapses
that death ever leaves, nor do i ever

leave it

(how could i, with our bodies entwined
and our voices combined to create one voice;
when i speak, or love with this heart of our hearts
does death love through me? or in me? or of me?
what is love but a thousand chips of bone;
a collection on our mantle, trophies of solitude
and eternal winters kept tightly confined)

a season is churning inside of me
i am choking up snow
i know i am a vessel, a harbinger, a black lung
sick with the love of decay.

Pain is not worth poetry.

because you are the house.
because you are the road in winter;
the endless passing

you are more than a year. Where
you travel, I linger
for want of a roof; yes, I need
the floor and the walls.

We have arrived --
a winter twice as cold
and air twice as clear. We know
we have changed by how many
layers we need -- boots, sweaters, coats.

I've counted bricks upon bricks
measuring a finger's width between.

The house is still
fogged in place; I am standing
at the doorstep with the key
because you have yet to arrive.

And how long
before your intended arrival
or my departure, when
what is thrown open shall be shut tight--
you never confirmed,
yet I still suspect your pace
across vales
and veils of snow.