Edifice

The places we put inside, all packed in, all stuffed and laid about
Like people, walking people, changing things like sinew-thin silk
Draping shoulders caking lace down wet legs and things, we walk
Islands to the bone, we stained-glass people walking inside ourselves.

And stained we are, the places we bleed out, all pouring and loud
With prayer, soft prayer, dripping out along porcelain-chipped flame
Lifted low and maybe frozen deep in canopy leaves-turned-brown
All pouring and loud and spraying across concrete and hardwood.

An indelible memory shaped to reflect ourselves inverted; caves
Sharing themselves folded gong-tones, blaring separation and again,
Easing soft from stone polished from rubbing between ourselves.
We carry our worlds like dragons, or, less passion, like tea between.

Little breathing things, the places we put in, all swaying and draped.
All soppy sometimes like milked cat feet, and crying softly still-
This the estuary, this the long-shore scarecrow with hanging rings
Jewelry still, and stones outside, glued up and pretty-posed.

We are the things we carry high, lower still those we leave behind.