Palos Santos

The ribs are cleverly sprung
knotted to the spine at one end
and clinkered to the sternum at the other:
even when the heart is struggling like a fish
they only sway, at ease,
thinking of the wind on a high ridge
far away.

We are advised to cast a cold eye.
Well, and I do, or do not; the fingers
lay in with the ribs like the good silver
in those joined velvet pockets, and the heartbeat, 
plain beneath,
lifts and lets them fall again;
while the breast laps against 
the side of the upmost finger,
reminding. 

Of what? Why even ask? Of sex
when sex was important of itself, if
you remember that far back;
or of the surgeon's knife,
and a dark blot on a ghostly film;
or of piano keys played cleverly
one idle afternoon, a life or two
ago.

Hush. Here is the palo santo oil,
cousin to the frankincense and myrrh;
here is the homely, undyed flannel
(the color that cream used to be);
Here is the eddy of air
where our breaths meet, 
unintended:
a pinwheel galaxy that unwinds
unseen between us.