We went out to buy a blanket for you but came
back with a box of dirty water. Tabletop
we count our change, each coin clinging
to sticky palms glove-torn, rubbing heat
to light a torch that lights a star that falls
into a tunnel of burnt time for us
to dream
if it were summer and some waltz floated
out insidious from the hallway, chairs lopsided
under the dying oak that still smokes
from fireworks in the year of our birth,
to dream
if it were a garden in evening, if it were women
walking about whispering about enoughs, whether
champagne glasses were touched enough,
the tinker of ice soft enough, the blades of grass
long enough to accompany the buttonhole,
to dream
if it were something more than fists
banging on tables swearing while froth die
from want of air, if it were more than sheer
sludge slushed down stone-cracked streets,
branches bared by birds’ cries ascending,
each trill the cut of bow on string
shrill in the bleeding ear trickling
down melted:
The air burns Vesuvius-like.
If hemispheres waltzed to the tap of time
you would not laugh so hard, so
heedless of your chattering teeth.