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The passage to our true frontier was narrow, after all, Guarded by those tenement nags who nattered on Above the peasant looms, the loose charity of Free advice, to be forgot As cranky sentiments are often canned: "Don't whisper to each other in Mixed company! So impolite!" Yet you and I took comfort In a secret nod or two, a shared dereliction Of beauty, as when, awakened early by The cat mewling in an outer room, We turned to one another's tangled hair, Staled breath and slick of night-sweat, To lock tight in a morning's bedded breakfast. How long (ash vendor's voice) before Slick and stale repel on principle? Or is it just fatigue that sets in, everywhere, 
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Like sand
we shake from shoes and dampened cuffs? In the world we loved, The bay was lazuli blue, Warm-swallowing as the inside of your mouth. We channeled impulse and rum punch, Coconut and cocktail napkin logos, Ball gown straps designed to slip from shoulders, Into the passing lanes of perfect time. For the seasons move as waltzing partners, so But metaphor unfastens with the leaves That, falling, make of Fall a simple thing, More clarified, less painted than we know. ***
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