How can I love him without causing
his mask to crack, a mask more cherished
than his naked face, one of intense
piety that glows like an auburn sun
against the horizon while the wine
of his tremulous voice is poured again and
again into goblets of adorers’ ears?
Transient as the splintering sun
in the moving river beside his home
was his love and transient the leap
of desire in his burnt sienna eyes
But how shall I survive the aftermath
of love and the sudden awakening
in him of reasons, the silence banked
as snow in the Nokia he gifted a month or two ago
returning from a Gulf-land to my impatient arms?