Meu Amor—

How is it I knew only your tenderness?
your nurturing façade, giving, always giving?
How is it your sweet song, noria of my nights
could hide from me such a terrible secret?

  mmm                 *  

mSempre o sonhador,^†  I would trace on your skin
mthe scattered caravans of your people
mtaste in your breast the opium and the orchid
mwealth and blood of millenia.

mAs day upon day we would play in the waves
mthe salts of our bodies mixing
mleaving kanji on the beach, constellations
mfor others to read  —or daring follow.

mYour mysterious hands reached deep into my soil
mthe undulance of your pesinho^§ washing
mover me and through me would soothe me
mexhausted, to sleep, each night.

 mmm                 *  

Darling—

It is true I always knew
our love was wild, illicit.

Yet the day you left me
I splintered in a confusion of blood and numbness
shards of love and despair

          > silenced! <

by the full extent of your treachery.

Yes, I made mistakes. I know.
When you needed me most
I pretended not to hear.
And when I arrived too late

mmmO god, too late…

Such vengeance!   Such vehemence!
The pain you wrought for soo many people
—the holocaust you made of their lives—
makes my shattered heart
makes my shattered heart seem small
akes my shattered heart seem small       indeed.

          

 mmm                                               *     mm

Each nightmm
in my tired dreamsmm
I pick at the wreckagemm
of your departure.mm

The world is blind and mutemm
everything dissolved in the bile of your betrayal.mm

—I am bones.   requiem.mm

 

 

   

 

      

    *                

 

And now
you ask the
unanswerable.

Will I put my life
in your hands as I did so many times before?

 Minha Querida,   —How could I?  How could I now
Minha Querida,   —give anything less?

 Responda-me Amor,    —Whose tears are these?

 Falling from the sky
                  coursing through our veins
                                   rivers pouring into the sea?

—I really cannot tell.m

 

 

 

                                      —ko phayam, thailand—
                                     18 january 05

 

---

^† “Always the dreamer,” in português.
^§ “gentle loving weight,” in português.