Separation
I cadged this from a passing memory:
the soft slate of your face, half-light
fading your shoulder for a bare instant;
and the warm breath of our bodies.
Four months have made voices welcome
by the forge of separation. We wait
as in ante-chapels, coaxing poor prayers
from a throng of stray congregants.
Your touch is the louder for its loss,
printing my fingers on your lips
like sainted children, speaking tongues.
Before dawn you'd dusted our dark shapes
with a faint grain of parable.
You looked at me, sensing departures,
and greeting the daylight's silhouettes
with refugees in your widened eyes.