[A] Sun kissing the walls This morning reminds me Of your radiance passing Over and around me through The long hours of the night, An unhinged polestar's, whose Flashy laughter I wake to find Crystalline on the bejeweled panes.

[B] After the patter of speech When I sit in the rain Washed stillness by myself Next to a blue lake, lost in thoughts As they come up for air And ripple my skin, as your fingers Do every night awake and asleep,

I begin to hear two voices walking down The avenue of years talking like two Gravelly guitars playing an intimate riff Of inside jokes, secret nicknames, mock Serious heckling, and those shimmering Moaning notes, rich with voiceless and timeless Desire that wells from their skins each day.

I run towards them, and soon take on His face that is gazing at hers (yours) In between the pauses, and saying Without saying (listen for the sharp intake Of breath here), "Death, when you come, Trick me into your ghostly embrace with This beloved face and its breathless beauty!"

This was an excellent and long essay on the current surreal state of Iran (one of my many pet fetishes):

www.nybooks.com

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?