Now that we are descending down the stairwell

of the latter half of the year,

counting all of our aches and sorenesses,

collecting fruit like pomegranates, persimmons,

things with long names and histories to couple

with the widening mouth of nights,

I have so little to say to you,

considering how short the days have become.

The sunlight, growing watery,

is not shared easily.

You are opening up new spaces in the back of our bookshelves,

hoping the shadows filling them

will leave some kind of testament

to this other world of subterranean purpose.

The darkness is also full, albeit quieter,

of other things than us.

I believe there was a time when days were fat and round.

I'm not certain, having forgotten much

of what has passed us by.

Certainly, we have shared some secrets,

as if we knew what secrets really are.

Colors were rampant in that heyday, and fragrances

like new mown grass and flesh.

I like, however, the way the thin skin of the sun

has stretched around us, tightening,

how things are not spent so readily or easily,

how we count among our treasures,

those organ vessels in this tomb containing heart,

or liver, or over-burdened pancreas,

all that is lost.

If we could know that the days would, in fact,

again begin to lengthen,

after some corner critically turned,

finding our reassurance in a corbel, arch,

an architectural detail, some structure

that defies, through its own rules,

the larger set of laws like gravity and death,

if we could bring back tokens

from the journey down those steps,

say:  newel posts, say:  something tangible,

would we sink sensibly into that sunset,

would we believe in sleep,

trusting the eerie light of dreams?

I think decay becomes us.

Fading dresses us down,

and sunlight, never so savored,

becoming delicate in its dismissal,

yields another range of nuance in this gloaming.

Perhaps we will become resilient,

snake our way toward eclipse,

or maybe we will whisper toward

the very back of the house where promises

and priesthoods balance on phenomena,

the room of pulleys and infernal machines.

I follow you, the trail of hieroglyphs, of gloves,

hands pressed against walls,

the confidence that these recede, opening into

a larger and more uncontroverted space.