Our Last

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in the brick building,
paneled over the brick
paned brick, strolling out
from some reticent
years, some discordant
notes and awkward leave-

takings —on this frigid,
undecided season— we leaned
over this frayed land,
the derelict stricken
with this native mélange,
our gazes teasing the walled green,
cautious, drawn,
awed
by our own newborn

synchrony. straggling down the
unasking sky, we watched the arch-
shadow of this vast
mock-city,
the loping, vagrant mist-skirt of its
sprawled buildings
– jagged cavity of
windows to phantom lives –

when your palms parted
their first private
whisper.
it was your reaching, deliberate
smell.
tobacco. flowers

splayed by the chocolate dark
earth of my mole where your
fingers grazed their
inching
promises

and your one long look
at the abstraction found me
a centre, alien tower;

flagship gray, your eyes
lit me
window by glow-
worm window—
the city alight

there was a call, the beam,
the pirouetting, groping
dart

by the circle-full, I stood:
vortex to the brindled immense—
the answering wind whip-
ping the ocean coat;
folding directions,
a homecoming
then your tremble on my name—

assailable now I am