unto day

It’s the weather that menaces me. Eminently mild. My God. My God.

The consistent balminess of it, unreal. I imagine you moving through it, a knife through warm butter.

In the basilica this morning, I felt it.

In the Virgin’s chapel, beneath her faraway stare, I sat and admired the gentle slope of her waist, her supple forearm, and felt it.

The cool air, lissome with humidity, caressing my hands, my neck, nestling up between my fingers, I felt it.

What you must feel every night, when the white sun descends and the dark mist rises, I felt there in the chapel, beneath the Virgin’s stare, her white waist at times a suggestion, at times a taunt,

the immovable slope of it, hopeless and serene.

And for that moment, alone, I knew you, again.