Comrade Love

24 COMRADE LOVE Your cheekbones, the last bit of afternoon sky, are suddenly rose-stained brass. Down the street it's night before we know it. November has raked the trees. They stick out awry in the murk: twisted rods the concrete has crumbled away from. They are not trees but fireworks black with frost. Our boots are ringing, stamping the raw gray of everything hard. We were bringing the heavens home. We had married one another to a bleak, elated planet. Unconscious of caring, in blind honor we took this life like an iron bar —it was frozen— and still we put our lips to it. ...