the distance we cover is vast,
so immense that I take you
to another globe,
a cold one, countless epochs
from the sun’s core,
a place where the days
are short – maybe there are no days –
where the North Sea pounds darkly
and collapses into blackness,
where there is too little brightness
for you to watch the crescent smile spread
across my face, to hear the measure
where the cello comes in
and signals the three notches
of Orion’s belt
not yet the entire orchestra
of shapely stars
that shifts as we shift and drive
off, you in your car, I in mine,
re-enter the damp past,
still attached, and to wonder
when our world will warm up?