I was looking at your chest x rays on the lighted wall

Your straight spine centered behind your rounded ribcage
Looks like busted churchgates
from all the times you let your ghosts go

And there are bees buzzing in your shoulders only
you aren't cold this time

So much faith in what I do with words
Willing to love me like a half written gospel
we are filling in as we go

And I want to write us poetry
like the first man was asked to play the first piano

Come
dance with me to my deathbed

I am afraid
That one day I might kiss you
like a deaf stethoscope
that no longer hears your heart

That this language will grow stale
Along with your faith in me

but my knees
are riverbeds for prayer

And I carry my chest heavy like a library
full of books that hate the silence

You should know that
being a poet is more than just a choice

and maybe my body is like a library
but when I pray to you
I'll never use my inside voice

Just like I know that god used nails
to make the iron in your blood stream

That you'll be strong even when you're old
and even then
I still want you to believe in me

When we are like trains that no longer run the tracks
when we've fully mapped the topography of our bodies

But some days
our engine chests come back

and I write a poem about you that is new

And you listen
To my huff and rumble
you lift your tea and saucer with shaking hands
I close my eyes
and hear our train coming