A Shadowed Cloak

Which will you prefer, the sounds
or the vibrations? In a festooned way,
I walk in tandem to your footsteps
on soft carpet stairs. A pair of old lovers
scaling the steep breadth of time.

Drawing shadows in like a cloak,
with each stride I am stunned
by my loneliness, which pierces
through you. I turn to the lit glass bay
just below the cavernous ceiling,
leaving whispers as pale as a sugar tablet
released on the tongue.

Your back stirs with the dim etching
of my caresses. One hand covers
the amber fields of your eyes
while the other seeks in vain
to soothe the tearing of your emaciated flesh.

Sometimes I forget how transitory I am,
where only grips of light and ghosts
of emotions feed the air around me.
So very little of what reaches you
comes from a place of loss: mine.
Behind us, the circumference
spans the length of a universe.