Living Cloisters

They raise themselves around us,
sudden shelters

within the larger outpour,
courtyards sprung

from currents of a brighter
force, palmful

of another’s hand, voice
rung down the spine,

stringing archways
within a space that shapes

nothing but its own dimensions,
a rhythm without song,

a corrugated darkness
hewn to colonnades and bells

by our names, meals,
momentary vows, sanctums

opening around a fountain,
its waters illuminated

like figurated calligraphy
in a root, arterial language.

Published in Mapmaking (BkMk Press/New Letters), 2010, and Beloit Poetry Journal, 2004. Reprinted on Poetry Daily in 2004.