Rome

If Rome wasn't built in a day, it must have been built in a week by poets
numbered like space-age cities built from the top down.
And this house was built by the strong in numbers like one is the loneliest number that there ever was in a timeframe hanging above the sink
bleeding ink down the drain
where who knows who does who knows what
where the unknown collides with the unseen
in perfect harmony we only taste on our lips
and in the scars we can't give away.
But his house just will always tug on the sleeve of great cathedrals
home to the (I know)s and the (I love)s and the (I will remember)s.
See, ancient Rome is living in the sky
dipped in the chocolate that breaks the rules
and this house is just alive.
Some people live to be a disease and others die to live
but when we get right to it,
we'll all be neighbors when the decomposers take the strings
and let us taste the iron with our bones
and taste our hearts with our friends.
Our so-called mortality will be a foil for our timelessness down there
because we all know that life in the ground is more south than the south,
where seconds flow like molasses into decades.
The steps down south were built in a day by the weary and the waiting
and the steps up north were built by the anxious and lead no is the saddest experience you'll ever know-where,
which is okay in the right frame of mindlessness.
I'm sure I'll get there after I burn enough rice and drop enough plates and pick up enough puzzle pieces that somehow still aren't the ones I'm looking for.
But if I'm one of the lucky ones, one of the great crusaders of life,
I will build my Rome on the same foundations as this house
singing a happy song even mockingbirds can't match.