you tell me that while you were in Montreal you 
all stopped in the biggest cemetery in Canada--
Notre Dame des Neiges: Our Lady of the Snow. 

tell me, does it always snow there, just within
the gates? the ghost of a women with hair made
of stone feet & frost bite come too late. 

i am a person of thresholds & one of those 
is your hands. let's make moths of ourselves 
& give in to acres-- to the archways built
for the dead to feel a sense of purpose again.

what business does a city have growing around
a mountain? like Mount Royal i laid
myself here in your hair-- collecting 
your shop lights & inquiring where they
each came from. i want to know
what the cobble stones are like when
they come apart because we were all up too late.

i want to know 
if we can stop here.

if you'll read the names off the tombstones
to me, the names in French that i can't pronounce.
they wake up-- brush the snow off our shoulders.

our lady is opening another grave with her thumb--

did you find La Pietà Mausoleum?
Laid out before a fountain filled with glass,
collecting reflections to hang in the parlor.
Michelangelo's twin statue: mary with 
the limp body of god across her thighs.

did you ever rest your head on your mother's lap
like this? i did & i asked her to pet my hair--
i melted-- became translucent; dissolved
into the the creases of the sofa.

we don't touch like that anymore.

you get used to the glass in the bath water

tell me, love, will you notice the snow fall-- 
the shovels are to dig us out-- 

tombstones tall as redwoods.

do you ever wake up with moss
on your elbows-- shake the tombstones off
like toadstools. 

our lady, carrying dead seeds in
her pockets-- breathing ice on them
to keep them from telling secrets. 

the first time it snows when you
love someone is irrevocable.

i wanted to be there with you. 

to lock the gate, 
even if only for an afternoon.