Oldest/Dearest

Solitary
swing
set

play yard
for
you
and
I.

But
serenity
never being
the watchword.
Blazing glory
descended
below our horizons.

Our feet shuffle
in sand
and trash.
In
this place
made for children
now worn thin
and
made fit for dogs.

So many years
our little hands
clasped.

Our souls
entwined
amongst
the ruins.

I hid with you
in Rothko's chapel
upon black lumps of cloth
amidst black landscapes.
Soon to be permanent shadow.

Uncommon streaks
of rose madder violet
that cut
the diagonal darkness
are naught but tricks of our eyes
set off by a brain
struggling to cope
with
perfect nothingness.

And yet

Still squeaking swings
seem
impotent
in their emptiness.

An Exploding sun
caught at freeways' edge
while you laugh
at my fear
of the height
and the fall
and the darkness.

Soon,
it seems;
has come.

Years
like water
caught in the air
hanging on our skin
beading on our faces
as the lights flare
the skyline.

Darkness descends on Houston
and
we've
both
been
crying.