Synthesis

 

The room went white,

the doctor’s words a buzzing of wasps,

and God was nowhere in the loud no color.

 

Then Alan held on to me,

pulled me out of the cotton batting of morphine,

where God also did not exist.

 

And still the electric current between us,

in the bed he made with his own hands

of Port Orford Cedar, his hand cupping

 

the breast with the crescent scar,

moving down my belly, concentric rings of light

moving out until there was nowhere

 

his body ended and mine began,

and God was there in the fire.

And still, we sleep in the bed,

 

make love in the cedar bed,

the wood darker now, but the bed still the boat

where we set out into night together,

 

leaving day behind,

turning and turning

under the miraculous stars.