In the Rhambangle, the climbing vines
looped themselves up and through the latticework
like emotions falling from a dream.

You loved the hour-bound birds who made their nests
in the high corners; feathered keepers
without ceremony, counters of our soft seconds and all the rest.

I liked your boots, especially tucked beneath a wicker chair
in the moonlight, lost to your feet
but called a curious thing by the avante garde among the moths of local wing.

I haven't said it well, I realize. My irises kept the words
after I first saw them in morning light.
It's a fool's errand, so they say, making these sounds no string nor key would own,

but I keep trying, because I love you down to the detail, the divinity, the dissonance, and the bone.