A citizen of a difficult
memory, I travel at the full speed
of sleep. In my coat pocket: a fruit knife
to peel the sun, a wine
-dark passport that keeps me company
en route to anonymity.
When the war ended, mountains learned
to crouch in the distance
like snow-capped suspicions.
The night in my eyes longs to hold
and be brightened by such distance
and my sleep, when it wraps its lanky arms
around me, will be the sleep
of those wintry mountains: a pale
cold chrysalis, a crystalline coat
a child bride drapes around her shoulders
to vanish, without a trace, from her wedding.
Dear winter, I don’t care what country
your sadness comes from.
You have half of my blood
in your wine cup. Your streetlights
stammer in statics. Your appetite
is a white flower of steam
clarified by heat. And you, dear stranger
whose name winter has scrawled in frost
across my window, don’t vanish
without a trace. Don’t believe the departure
screen above the railway platform.
The overnight train heading east
will never reach dawn.
Don’t trust the news you read –
on the wind’s lips, in the dust dispersed
by the wind, its alternately slurred
and quicksilver speech – the news
of my disappearance. I’m not leaving
without the sun, not without
its entire orchard
of light in my pocket.