Be an embrace in which I may weep,
a solace against the restless grind
of wandering clock-hands.
Be a shoulder, endless
for the bowed heads of laments,
for the man who, lost in delirium,
wanders the cold alleys,
bereft of the warmth,
the crackling laughter,
of a mother’s hearth.
Yet even here the song persists,
slipping through shuttered doors:
jazz yawns,
long and languid,
drifting into the strays’ slumber,
measuring its notes
against the unbearable weight of things.
And then
a smile, sudden as spring,
drawn from jasmines,
quenches its thirst
in the whiteness of your teeth,
like moonlight dissolving
into a cup of milk.
