The sky tonight has this slightest stain
of purple, as if
I, walking home on a cold sidewalk,
or all these students, studying in their cells,
were but bacteria beneath
some translucent skin,
a heart’s, pulsing and warm.
And the architecture then
of our lives, these houses and cars and adventures,
are fulfilled as paths
upon tissues, sinews, the lattice
of some very large exchange.
Even this chill
of the air slipping under my coat
is a warm current as well,
a further immersion
in an atmosphere
full as blood.