i.
   she, hand in hand, walks–
    her fingers swallowed by His palm
etched rough with living.

         the endless climbing stairway turns
     blood to snow to blood to snow to
  shifting flow as footsteps slow and
         down
              down(down)
                   they go.

    nineteen steps
         with that flaking ferrous slab
     as high as heaven high as falcon wing
          high as stars tangled in black moss
                  to her small eyes.

             over flattened mat,
  twisted stitch so rich in memories;
        each speck each single speck a
   life cast off from rough hewn boots:

       this one here,
  dropped in with snow long since turned to tears,
from life as granite to nurturer of good and green,
        or here,
   an inkling of a field now fallow,
         his hands once strong are strings now cut.

the light is low and heads raise, eyes seeking
        newness, strangeness.
  faces register, nerves unknown clenched release,
a tense silence fades.

     the steady snipsnip as she
slips into corner chair
      which leaves legs dangling loose as
  business-like she
sets about her business of
     sorting chaos–
          realigning the shuffled entropy of day to day.

     yellow spines aligned by
turning seasons.
      age is evident in their pages,
  glory tales of those long past their glory days,
eager anticipation of times too far gone to disappoint.

He smiles at her busy hands and
  chooses one Himself,
        its words well-known,
  of foreign wonders,
   distant men.

ii.
    at the Chair stands he,
       with glittering shears moving surely swift,
       a well-trod path, through piling drift.

master of this place,
       in fresh-pressed slacks,
           his father’s shoes,
       his own hair a reflection of his craft.

      the smile is there,
  buried just beneath the surface,
        ploughed up only in the eyes with glimmerglitter.

   the smile
           even in its depth
    flickers off when eyes glance up
          to door that led, that led
    that led, once led,
that leads to empty room,
     where fingers, her fingers, don’t count money,
  where eyes, her eyes, don’t check books for his mistakes,
        where no one sits,
              where no one calls his name from time to time,
     where no one waits to share that sandwich
       made with love.

  absently he spins the plain gold band,
      and the smile flickers back to life
  behind the eyes, though the bones betray this
          newfound age.

iii.
       He sits now,
               hands resting on leather black,
     the steady air as He is raised to height.

they talk, her He and he with
     scissors held in hand, with that name made famous
by Damascene revelation,
      they talk of town, of change

he, his silver flashes, he would wish the change away.
     it comes of nature,
         his craft is keeping change at bay,
  returning to that imagined ideal,
       that super real where life is like the pictures.

iv.
     her eyes watch as
         grey shards fall in snowy drift.
   pieces of the self,
      cut away with such ease as if
   as if who we are can just be shed
          as if life were a series of choices
    to refine the vessel.

       who is Paul to shape the He?
              to later brush those bits and
        cast away the truth can
   any see the castings anymore?
           years later if we could gather,
   gather all those ends,
         our Samson power,
    what would reveal?

           how much did we leave behind,
     in day to day on Paul’s clean floor?
           with every step taken?
     every scrap shaken free of loose moorings while
in the corner magazines were sorted for a
                           stick of gum.