A Very Long Winter

Sunlight hits your eyes like Roman arrows
And tumbles with impotence down your cheeks.
Your voice fires with the precision of Persian blades
Evoking the memory of burning effigies.

I rest on your lips and lose more sleep
Over the terrible burden of potential energy -
Calculating the trajectories of Sol
And the pirouettes of lovers' hands.

I wear thoughts of you, threaded into my clothing –
Released into the ether with every collision.
But your arms hold your heart down,
The burden of logic; fragile, yet abrasive.

You listen to palpitations and synchronise,
Two hearts amplified and syncopated.
Ours words are The Dead's lonely legacy,
But we will have to resonate much higher

If we are to survive.