— for M

The wash of flames in your fireplace appears
liquid, gold rising and falling in waves, very like
the heat I feel in your arms, your heat and mine
mixing, stirring, rising into a warm new thing,
my leaden heart slowly crystalizing into a whole
new element, after melting down into a puddle of
heavy grey, heated to the core after decades,
weighted down and forever dragging myself
through my days until this moment, this chilly
day warmed by the fire you started, the flames
we feed together, two faggots of wood sizzling
and rising up to warm not just themselves but all
the air in the room, our skin, your fingers on my arm,
my tentative lips on your jawline and your neck,
while outside a beaver moon hangs like a circle
of silver, balanced on a sliver of star as the year

draws to a close, this momentous year of changes,
tidal waves dragging their salty tumult over us,
scraping away the bright, shiny glass that we were
to throw us back, castaways gasping on the sand,
softer, less lustrous perhaps, older for certain,
awaiting we knew not what, and yet here
we lie, exuding heat, exhilarating in the golden
waves washing the room, leaving our two lives
similarly gilded, thrilling in the heat, to touch
and be touched, to feel the remains of our old
lives sloughing away on this golden tide, smiling
into each kiss, what is left of us nothing faded,
only having suffered an incandescent sea change
into something new yes, brand new, but also
startlingly familiar and brilliantly rich and strange:
making even chill November warm to touch.