time erodes everything, they say.
(but our time
has not yet started;
has always existed)

do you believe
in star-crossed lovers?

something
besides
celestial dynamics has
kept us apart–

something
has made my
heart’s disquiet
take its place
in the astrometry of night

where separation is a dark country,
and love is a heliocentric cosmology.

celestial mechanics,
laws of gravitation,

darkness spreading its tiger pelt
streaked with glowing gold,
despair of hope, hope
of despair,
the month of march
crawling at the foot of time
haunted by distance
and dusk…

there is always something.

yet ,
nothing
we could ever do
would be more consequential
than
our first kiss

and the length
of our lives pressed against each other,
our bed adrift on morning’s river