Wind chips away
the warm blush
from people's faces
as they scuttle between
buildings,
complaining loudly
at their lot
(what terrible injustice,
they say)

The snowflakes that
pelt their eyelashes
(beautiful crystalline
miracles (they shiver))
are cursed,
as if their mere presence
were not enough

Her velvet ears still perk up
and her tail thumps

She licks and scampers
and rubs her nose
a bit drier these days
when I call

She's old now
her golden coat faded
but always a ferocious
little puppy for me

"I've seen God," he says
They laugh

"Was he big?"
"Was he old?"
"How's his beard?"

"No, you don't understand,
I've seen God."

"Is he white?"
"Is he black?"
"Is he red?"
They all laugh

"No, you don't--"

"How's his hair?"
"How's he smell?"
"God is dead!"

And they cheer

He stares at death,
the circles in his face
embracing him

"But my wife!"
cries the man,
death shakes his head, No

"My children!" he shouts,
Death is silent

"I...I still have things to do here."
No, he reaches out

Warm elastic waves
engulf him
rippling through infinity,
circles of circles

No one can say what it was like (when
we fell in love) before the universe

After the big bang, they say, it inflated
faster than anything ever has

Faster than light

Space ballooned by wild orders of
magnitude, precipitating existence
(your rose petal lips)

It only happened once, this inflation,
then the universe hit its stride

Only once, (when we touch)
but that was all it took for the stars to shine

He ratchets a smile
she sins in her heart
and he pallets a romance
she fearfully starts

He catches her breath
in a bottle of time
and melds her aroma
to shards of his mind

She sketches a portrait
betrayed by the dawn
and illuminates fantasies
kept all along

He pallets a romance
she smothers it slow
and he shatters the bottle
that she overflows

The open casket sang --
what force an oak elicits
encasing a body