Eric M. Petit

Past the Iron Doors

 

 

 

She had touched him in the place of his longing, in the place of his spirit’s deep fire,

 

That had burned so desperately low, so perilously cold in the long winter of his heart.

 

She had reached in and touched the place of his pain, the ashes of black sadness

 

Heaped up in the corners like nightmares that fed upon the bones of old dreams.

 

She cut away all the bonds that held him so tight and fast to such deadly sleep

 

And awoke in him something hot and fierce, something terrible and lovely.

 

Her voice banished shadows like magic, her laughter cut cords of sadness like sharp spells.

 

She touched him so deeply and he could not help but touch her, could not help but love her.

 

He awoke with her curled up in his heart so sweetly, like coming home

 

And he knew he had never belonged anywhere so fully, so truly, so completely.

 

Their bodies laced together in perfect and peaceful sleep was sacred, living art,

 

Painted in the brush strokes of each breath against the neck, in the soft shades of sighs.

 

Their urgent love upon the beds of wet grass and smooth planks was pure and holy poetry,

 

Written into the bindings of the universe, written upon all the pages of the earth.

 

She fit him more closely than his own flesh and he was more at home in her

 

Than he had ever been within himself. She slipped into his heart like a lost key

 

And he opened for her every vault, every chamber, every secret place where

 

He’d kept his dreams, hidden with hopes and fears, locked tight and sealed shut for so many years.

 

She drew them out, each ragged one, and touched their little, beating pulse in her hands.

 

He had tried to give her his heart but realized he had never truly owned it himself.

 

It had always been hers, in her hands, in her eyes, within the warm curve of her breast.

 

He belonged to her like stones belonged to the earth, like the wind belonged to the sky.

 

He did not know every answer but these things he knew beyond all doubt;

 

In the depths of time and air and darkness he had been coming to her all his life,

 

Making his way toward the pull of her heart, making his way toward home.

 

He had found her and she had found him. She had touched him and known him.

 

She had seen past the iron doors and bared gates to the man who he truly was.

 

She had loved him and he would never again be the same. Never again would he wander,

 

Without her, alone over the face of the earth. He would never again seek her name in the stars of dreams.

 

He would love her, so deep that the roots of mountains cried out in dark fire and heat

 

And the oceans wept salted tears of such desperate and bitter envy.

 

He would love her beyond the reach of time’s grasping and greedy fingers.

 

Though their bodies shed the garments of beauty, one by one, he would love her,

 

More and more. In the brightest brilliance that the heavens could shine

 

And the utter darkness of the fiercest storm’s deep night, he would love her.

 

With hands clasped and eyes bright, laughing in the face of terror and lightning,

 

He would love her. As no man had ever loved a woman, he would love her.

 

 

Eric M. Petit