He stepped onto the road with a sack full of promises.
In his solitude, he was kind to a fault.

Inside the sack were bread and two pomegranates,
and what seemed to be a black hole.

Numb with cold, blinded into innocence,
he drew me inside his fur coat.

But the heart of the coat was a gaping hole,
and I slipped away – for good.

Now I pluck teardrops from the soul of the pomegranate.
Blood drips from the night’s black cloak.

Someone fiercely stitches the dark outside
with the thread of cigarette smoke.

Whose lonely star is that one, pray tell,
that swollen red wound, open wide?

As if God draws out – with a red-hot needle –
a splinter from deep inside.