Singing louder.

Song

The lace under your shirt,
intricate as lichen,
flirts all night
with the moon's

distant interweaving that nobody
can hold
because it falls equally
on all this spring so cold

and late arriving—
twenty-five years to discover
that love still lies waiting ...
Our talk builds in the air

nothing noble or simple
but something unforeseen
in the way people
come to mean

more than any presence
in the sky's vast foyer
leading to apartments
too grand for

easy habitation:
I love the way your face
becomes the reflection
of gravity, grace, a place

to settle in when
love that passes on
to others as soon as we are gone
arrives without an invitation:

let's lay our heads down
among beams and girders
rising floor by floor
around the moon half risen.

-- Tom Sleigh