With a bright orange rake

you summon dead leaves from the ash

as if sweeping a monk’s skirt

I remove poem sheets

stack them into a palimpsest

to write anew about love.

When the wind is unpredictable

you breathe air from my blue eyes

I say nothing

drink white sky droplets

as if the Beloved and you

are my flesh and blood.

O tomorrow, may it never come,

when your aging handsome face

unruly eyebrows and sag of mouth

will be cut with orange scissors straightening

your lips into a pomegranate smile.

Only then will I lick

the luminescent orange to red drops

escaped into my heart.