For you have said: love is built to last forever.
                         Psalm 89
 

Caress me into long life; life is long,
if we’re to rise from swallowtail and thorn,
green ivy and a muddy tolerance for death.
Caress the ribs where solitude
 

is born. Eternity turns days into something
else: new skin for our elusive shadows;
a cut-rose blooming on; a timeless piano,
songs for a different hour...
 

Don’t you see? Our house will yield, yet
shield our first embrace; the walls will laugh,
when wishes fall silent; in time, we’ll decorate
a place. Always.
 

And, when we lift our rings, out of a ritual
burial, we’ll bite the glint, the gold;
still ours, this mode of permanence in stone—
now naked, now heaven kissed.