count our empty coffee cups,and chew…

count our empty coffee cups,and chew…
I count our empty coffee cups,
and chew…
the last crumb of poetry I have,
and strike my skull against the wall…
I promise you… piece by piece…
before your withdrawal from me, before the train departs.
I count… your slender fingers,
I count the rings upon them…
I count the streets of your breasts, house by house…
I count the rabbits beneath the blanket…
I count your ribs, before the embrace… and after the embrace…
I count the pores of your skin… before my entry, and after my exit,
before my suicide,
and after my suicide.

2
I count your toes…
to make sure the silk is safe,
the milk is safe,
Mozart’s piano is safe,
and the Damascene pigeons
still play in the courtyard of my home.
I count the details of your body…
inch by inch…
land and sea…
leg and waist…
face and back…
I count the birds
stealing from between your breasts
wheat, and flowers…
I count the poem, verse by verse,
before the explosion of languages,
and before my own explosion.
I try to cling to the nipple,
before the sky collapses upon me,
before the curtain falls.
I try to save the last beautiful breast,
the last woman…
before the arrival of the Tatars.

4
I measure the span of your waist
before the shell falls upon the glass of my letters,
before my splitting apart.
I measure the span of my love, and fail—
how can a small sail,
like my heart,
cross the high seas?
I measure what cannot be measured—
O woman from the space of prophecies,
will you accept my apology?

5
I count your perfume bottles upon the shelves,
and a wave of dizziness storms me…
I count your radiant dresses,
and I enter a forest
of copper and fire…
The stalks of your hair resemble the dimensions of my freedom,
and the colors of your eyes
hold the openness of the prairies.

6
O woman… I still count her hands,
and err…
between the sunrise of hands… and the sunrise of day.
O if only I could meet you for five minutes
between my collapse… and my collapse.
It is war… chewing my flesh and yours…
What can I say?
What words are worthy of this ruin?
I fear for you. I do not fear for myself.
For you are my final madness…
You are my final burning…
You are my tomb… You are my shrine.

7
I promise you…
from the earring, to the bracelet…
from the source of the river, to the gulf of shells…
I count the cups of our desire,
then begin to count them anew.
Perhaps I forgot the reckoning a little,
perhaps I forgot the reckoning a lot,
but I never forgot the greeting
to the peach tree in your lips,
and the scent of roses, and pomegranate blossoms.

8
I love you…
O woman who still remains with me, in the time of siege.
I love you…
O woman who still offers me her mouth as a rose
in the time of dust.
I love you to reincarnation, to union,
to my annihilation in you, to my vanishing.
I love you…
I must say a little poetry
before the decision of my suicide.
I love you…
I must liberate the last woman
before the arrival of the Tatars.