A Secret Matter of Grave Importance

Except when once we drew identical lots nothing’s ever come between us. We keep our drifts of space spare and daily shake our down. You’ve glanced beyond your dirty cuffs and caught me hand-washing my clean shirts. Stuck with sharp wind, both bloods are rare and rarely do we taste the walnut’s knot of oil. We wake between our fitted sheets and shake our fists or pretend real fright but not in this do we dare touch. My rib cage can stand in yours, yours become the swinging doors through which magician’s swords will slice and miss that knotted muscle. It is a trick. We’ll make an endless show of the outright clanking, irregular beating of our acrobatic hearts. We’ve designed the double bars of depth; our hearts skip — the tumbleset we think is absence, the somersault we call forbearance — the hearts are there, doing turns that teach us to count and keep each finger close to its own sly pulse.