Portugal Fantasy Saudade

All those talks we had, your breath smoky. All those plans we had to someday meet. And then I felt the fear turning my legs icy while we climbed toward the sky’s craggy peaks. Were you safe didn’t matter compared to gloom and encapsulating castle with weird turrets. I knew you by the peeled bark bared to bloody red, all cork removed as if we’d sip continually of wine. I wanted glimpses of you in the twisting streets along the cathedral, someone to make the world okay. I wanted to touch your body however beaten or holed to wonder at the risen glory of angelic choir. I remained alone, quiet in heart staring at the world’s star map, hungry for some distant home, just you and me. And the children we would have had, all graceful with the bump against wall flight, free from gravity. How could gravity keep me among trees and seashells among prehistoric rocks uptilted, among the waves. While, you. You were you, husky with sorrow but free within tomorrow and I remained today. Such are dreams, carried by an aqueduct built by foreign legions and crumbling to dust as we age. Do you remember all those talks, the stogie’s curl of smoke heating the breath and all the places where we walked together hand in hand along cobblestone with a ship about to sail and me?