I am blessed by starlight, here in this bed. We had the ceiling removed some years ago, replaced with toughened sheets of glass that we might enjoy the night to the extents of its potential. Each morning, for the first month or so, my beloved or I would climb to the flat roof of the kitchen and reach out over the glass with a soaped mop, cleaning the glass to an elegance of expansive crystal. Now, in autumn, the dry leaves have worked their way into the corners of the glass, for neither of us makes the effort to keep out the rot. We still have the stars, blessing us in our sleep with silent beatific rays, but their glimmering genuflection is framed by decay. It's somehow more real. Occasionally, we dwell on this.
When winter comes, wild geese circle overhead, their cries made faint by altitude, but resonating, throbbing with poetry - a longing for the marshland's soft ooze, the bitter taste of green chard crushed in a spoon-like beak, and the necessity of maintaining a distance just so from the flock-mate ahead. Sometimes, when winter is truly here, we wake inside an ice floe, bathed in chill and milky light. Crystal tendrils spill over the expanse above us, and we begin our day somewhat humbled by this glacial water's beauty. We dare not think of the heating bill.
Summer brings pigeons and with them their filth. A black cat prowls over, and observes our sleeping forms: a man-mountain and his beloved, spooned together, squeezed into this. Here in this bed, I am blessed with starlight, surrounded by decay. In this bed it is warm, and my beloved gives out the heat of devotion. I am happy here; for now, at least.
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