You came and left, and in between there is no evidence of yesterday.

On the desk a stray hair, longer than any hair of mine, on the bed the smell of your sweat.

Still I forgot so many details in just twelve hours and in twelve more I may even
forget about everything of your arrival and deprature.

Winter deepens and nights shorten very convinently, so that too much light may not impugn the dark or too much warmth may not thaw my freezing.

Darling, when your fingers touched me every prison of ice holding each cell of mine thawed and cried hot tears, remember their taste?

Darling, there are no signs left in this wintry landscape, where everything has been snowed in and everything left behind our old road atlas is only good for burning as roads have vanished.

Darling, when I see other eyes tonight, I would see those eyes alone, it no longer, is as those days, when I saw your sad eyes in all other eyes.

Now you have to come and not leave so that of everything in between, I may forget, so that of everything in between, I might see,

I still, may remember your warmth, imprisoned in sad ice and still keep your sad eyes, as some evidence of yesterday.

2002:12:16 15:30 Atlanta

On remembering lines of Agha Shahid Ali's ghazal:

He's freed some fire from ice, in pity for Heaven; he's left open-for God-the doors of Hell tonight.