* * *
Love is bitter
by separation, by almonds,
a ruined era,
November,
the splinter
that sticks out in the night
iron ochre
of silence,
moth-eaten
of memory,
the dotted pain
of unquenchable guilt,
the penitent prose
of suffering,
and the harp of the wind
sounds
in the lost labyrinths
of divine prayer
in the hour of the battle
of David and Goliath.