To My Beloved
Absence slices through me each day with a cold blade
It kills me slowly
Its edge pressed against my throat
its handle gripped by the wrist of time
I didn’t know that when I wrote
“Time is my favorite dictator”
he would take it to heart
and savor my execution
Now I’m far south of the valley
The chance of dying by a missile is less
but the death from worry
grows sharper with every breath
I remember crossing the valley that first time
just to be in your arms
so our two hearts could rest
and you could brush the rubble of home
off my shoulders
My love
tired of all this ash
I’m in a city that doesn’t resemble ours
There’s no shoreline here
to catch your glance
as I point to my seagull
No olive tree
to gather beneath
every Thursday at our café
Absence has become a passing scene
stealing me day after day
All scenes feel ordinary now
since your morning face
was forced to disappear from mine
I’m here, my love
gripped by fear
each time I remember
I’m far from the blue of my sea
curved around your waist
How can I still belong to the flock of seagulls
when my sea has become a cage
and its key
is only in your eyes?
My beloved
All my letters begin and end with you
about the sky’s redness set on fire by flares
about the aid plane
and the missile that shattered our lives
I write that I am a seagull
in brown ink
close to the color of your eyes
I steal your braids and hold them each night
just to fall asleepAnd still, the question haunts me
When and where
will the seagull meet his beloved crow?
And when they do
what kind of meeting will it be
