I can sit enveloped in this womb of a chair smoking
knowing that you would like the knowledge that I am
watching you asleep in our bed, watching the pulsing sway
of your form as
each gentle breathe you draw stirs and courses
from lung to heart to body, that hallowed body
whose skin I have touched in minutes gone, whose
lines I have traced idly with my fingers, whose
curves I have known and mysteries I have explored
(in time both short and immensely vast
and always, always the finding of more).
Behind you sleeping, through the window lies
the city eager and waiting twenty floors below
vibrant in the blanketing night, a thousand million
countless points of splendid light flickering away
that hold a thousand million countless lives:
one of whom I know one is a man who
watches the sleeping shape of the woman he
adores on a bed disheveled and beautiful, behind
her the city through the window, huge and always
the city we share (as we share this moment),
vibrant in the blanketing night, a thousand million
countless points of splendid light flickering away
that hold a thousand million countless lives:
one of which is mine staring back at his-
the whole world between us: but joined
because we love.
Should we pass each other on the street (he and I)
we could never know by looking that we shared
such colossal galaxies, nor that when
I look into your eyes (or he in hers) we find
our better angels. But I like to think that he
could smell/hear/see your body with mine
(separated by distance but together) and smile,
and he and I could know that in our hands
(his and hers)
(yours and mine)
we all hold a thousand million countless points of light.
I can sit smoking knowing that you would
like the knowledge that I am watching you,
that it is the delicate majesty of you sleeping
framed against the hard eternity of the
city in the window
that makes me feel alive; one amongst a thousand
million countless points of crisp and loving light.
