Before Dinner

This room is stasis
with its wide peach settees
its swagged curtains and distributed
ornaments - the festooned baby
grand: rosewood draped with green -
a stretching space of
flickering flames and the smooth
rustle of your pages - we have
reached a calm place in an
enclosed bay - the days
wearing away behind us, our
sails still: and the water
laps the caulked wood, a
delicate sway and my heart
hidden beating softly: we
leave tomorrow back to the grey
but for now my rising mercury
falls and the blood pools
desperate to be at ease - the
whirling mind becalmed
by wish fulfilment: the hope
of a dream -
the barometer of our hours
registering pressure in the unseen
air -
essential gravity has
brought us here:
still trees and frosty Highland air.

Our clasped hands do us justice
and our pressed bodies
serve our love - the long slow
spiral turns in to one moment
in time: the crucial dot
on the map.

We travel the wide long curve
of stair, unknowing
what awaits us: in the minutes
here, ticking, we are still
and glowing.

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