EXTRACTS FROM THE BOOK OF HOURS

i.

Words are too frozen for him to utter.

And the wayward wind rattles at the door

as he pours himself another glass of wine,

trying to coin a story

out of his hours of agony.

There’s another abandoned glass on the table.

It’s tainted with lipstick, rather vulgar.

Sitting in his cage of memories,

he bids to recall the shape of the lips.

ii.

There’s love which comes

and love that goes.

There’s love elicited

from the cries of passion

and love that sustains wounds

throughout the season of white thorns,

trying to invent its night of cleansing.

iii.

There is presentiment.

There is a moment

which arrives

from the index of possibilities,

where dawn can shift abruptly

into night,

full of uncertain shadows.

And that would be poetry.

iv.

She said she’s turned into a lost dove.

She has no more strength to fly.

Let her sleep:

perhaps someone would descend from paradise

carrying a new pair of wings

and bids her:

Here, try again.

v.

He spends circular nights.

He needs to dissolve his nostalgia,

swoon it with lavender incense,

smudge its refrain,

dislodge its bones

to the dense sound of the hours.

But shadows keep reaching out

on the present.