Subterranean

Every time I allow myself to fall
free of all the reasons this particular
latched garden must not bloom,
into those sullen brown eyes of hers,
I find myself chest deep in a pristine river.

This uncharted river has gone
subterranean over the years.
On the genteel surface above
she has danced to every melody
but her own buried ballad:
that song that still
rises around her like a mist
some early mornings
before the machinery of duty
engages its oily grey gears.