The Sunday hospital car park
entices a little rain
and electric buses whisper by 
don't disturb the peace, don't disturb the pain.
The world is not on fire — all could yet be well —
long, slow, and flameless pockets smoulder
with a babe's first breath and a patient's final sigh.
The crucible is warming but its contents are getting colder.

This is not how I envisaged it.

How is it now that you are here
in my flesh and in my blood
— you, my friend, my treasure,
you, roaming, exceeding every measure —
receptacled from the abstract sphere,
delegate of dust, mind of mud?

This is not how I envisaged it
and all could yet be well.

I push the hair out of the world's sleepy eyes,
asking her tenderly what she sees:
she has wandered her way deep
to the place where wizened phantoms boom
that there can be no home
through the extreme interior caverns that she leaps.

This is not how I envisaged it
and the world is not on fire.

So I lay the world back down to sleep;
I leave her as I found her,
dreaming subterranean dreams.
In this moment I know both lives:
she is a summerlong seed that none can reap —
yet they germinate who sequester,
gleaming a subterranean gleam.