two solitudes

two solitudes
sitting together 
side by side,
looking into
the charred silence,
hands clasped
in a love
that knows
what was spent,
dusted and wrung out,
with a zest for life,
meeting itself
at the crossroad
of what was,
what is,
and what could be,
in one pristine breath
of a life,
lit among the embers
of this stony silence,
chiselling our skins
into one
now.