Once, long ago but not long

when you consider life,
there was a house
on the cliff,

beach below where you stood straight
with misty sighs, considered gray
in your hair

the same as that day’s sky -
remember?
You said

it would all be mine and then,
like the heart,
gone.

Not just the beat between words,
quick steps from thought
to thought -

you warned all life’s a pulsing pounce,
this one, the next.
I argued,

said something out-longs the way
we live. Sand on the shore
metaphors.

You rolled your eyes,
mentioned castles,
tides,

night with its cold wind on bone,
we headed in
to the fire,

watched worlds begin and end.