All night I groped
for what you whispered,
fingers edging
the pink shag fringe of a Saint
Vincent DePaul bathrobe.
So much faded
like a picture ransomed
by the light capturing it:
lit candles, red fuse
of Egyptian Goddess
incense, your cork boards
all pinned with scraps.
Sunset settled in our glasses
of five buck red as you unspooled
black thread and sewed
second-hand pasts
into first-rate jackets
and gift-ribboned them
for the outerwear racks
of another thrift store.
That night, the arcade
was cobblestoned to lengths
that didn’t need knowing.
Under streetlights,
alleys and arches
opened to us new cities
within ours: city of snow-
drifts we made angels
in, city of books and dust
and rusty wind-chimes,
city of our reflections
in oval mirrors,
of sky-colored tiles
mosaicked into faces
in a city of lives
you whispered
I’d outlive my need to live.