Autumn lay your mapled hands over me, and cover my pining skin
Till April with her delicate scent, douses this parched keening skin.

Night, quick, shorten your stay. And you winter, slough your white skein.
For towards paradise, I want to row her on the boat of my thrumming skin.
Hush, all you leafy orchestras of the west wind! Please stop your swishing din.
For only on tiptoe do the Beloved's fingers shyly sneak over my eager skin.
Rose of Sharon extend your ancient shade over me and my smoldering twin.
Afterwards in the markets this question, "Who has so branded your skin?"
And Sashi, who woke you up last night with the insistent whisper, "caress my skin"?
Was it the rain on the window, or she who now lives within your bombed open skin?