Arcadian Days

immortal past, unfolded like
the origami from his
pockets, those squares, rectangles,
triangles of white, wordthick,
insulating him from the cold,

his love hanging like a lei
around his neck, between them
the blossoms yellow, sickly sweet,
an old memory pressed
between the sheets

of a volume left in her mailbox, the
note post-dated while
icicle-teeth, jagged, hang down from
the eaves as if to consume her whole,
blood, brain and gristle

three automobiles, tarpshrouded, in
blue, black, tan, flap, flap, in the
sudden breath of wind strained through tree-
limbs, morse code of heat ticking up
from the furnace, a red sky tonight

their arms entwined now, as roots overgrown
thick with moss, velvet green, his gloved
hand in hers, twisting her ring, the circle
broken by stones mined in those
carefully-footnoted arcadian days