the Sunday afternoon captured me between the softly breathing walls wondering lazily if, when the deliberacy of life takes me over, I’ll be armed and ready the wind (or the rain, I’m not sure) has crept in the window and is melting around our fever, our blood-filled bodies candy in the hot sun perfume from a broken glass bottle, (previously shaped like a swan or a woman) ringed by haloes left over from when you stared at the sun for too long inside this spider thread sanctuary there was no rage against the dying of light and while I buried my face against your side with your hands on my back the world moved around us slowly, behind all the doors and windows and walls cars rushed by, children chased each other people watered their lawns, walked around importantly and talk of defilement rang against the cold Sunday air outside the hills standing, bell-shaped against the horizon and white-washed sky kneeling, the very image of purity and quiet in a world of chaos and stains they said the heart of it all was sick grey and worn, propped against the walls, tired lungs themselves shuddering open and closed no longer filled with Venus and brightly colored roses but gasping and heaving while the land absorbs our bones and there is quiet talk of when did this happen and where is the hope and how did it get this bad, is it too late? all of which is met by long faces, resolved mouths and shaking heads in the world that we have built in seven days a world of mercury and steel pipes and wires and concrete and dark nights what is there left? what violation have we not seen? was there ever a rule made that was not broken? the discontent, the amnesiac Russian Roulette, the foreplay of finger foods and the climax of misery into a Styrofoam coffee cup has forgotten about our tenderness, our sterling interiors our realizations primary to understanding the violence of our hope