Little checks and tallies that do not balance

We hoard the receipts of our expenditure in the caved, 

Curved boxes that are sinews, the walls of our beating hearts.

I am no accountant, I do not have the steady hands

And the keen mathematical eyes required for the job.

So sometimes, I lose records, I lose numbers, I lose count
They fall through my hands like rainwater, even as I look to the sky
To try to carve out each individual drop, stamp each falling crystal child
So they may be different, so I may come back to them later.

But I am no accountant, I do not have the memory of clear film
That winds smoothly through the looper to give a distinct playback.

I do not know whether to count the words that you stack against me
Or the silver of your knife, as it flashes against mine
Parries,
Like two pirates on the deck of a disputed ship.

I do not know whether to consider the days where you forget to smile
Or when your stock of patience has been bled dry
When the angle of your face feels suddenly foreign,
Against mine, even when I press skin to skin.

I am no accountant, for I do not understand how the weighing scale tips
Brass, cold and unfeeling- for this is not the nature of relationships.

For in the quiet of the night, after the black, blazing war of the day
After we have hung up,
I lie there

Distinctly aware that you,
For all that's been bartered and exchanged- still have my heart
In the curved cavity of sinews, in the place of coins and the mental records
(We keep of our fallacies)
There is no debt, no payment sourly demanded
No price I can astutely make,
Just a Quiet place I call home, for the both of us.