Evening with you is a sweetened night,
you seem like the drops of dew
falling on to me from a laurel tree.
I wake at dawn to shake them off
before morning opens an eye or stretches.



Evening with you is manna and quail
embers smouldering beneath the kindling of feelings
bursting with you into flame.
My body on top of you softens just before melting.
Will you let me, now, elegise myself
and disintegrate?



Evening with you is a fatwa
and a tender Lord who treasures me.
I am the convert who made pilgrimage
from you unto you and worshipped.



Evening with you is shelter
and a river of musk poured out for me
as if I were river rushes bending
to drink and be sated.

Come near let us cross the gulf
between poles of isolation on horses of instinct
or bridge the distance, cedar of the Seventh Heaven,
where fortune must bend to us
and be revealed.

Come near to me!
Because separation looms ominously over us
Come near! Let separation faint and be forgotten
Come near so it is forgotten.




Evening with you is a wolf yet cleverer
that leapt on my soul — a gazelle at a waterhole
that stared at her beauty
taking the water as a mirror to make herself
sharper-featured and more beautiful.

Evening with you is a wolf yet stupider
for even in attack he held something back
to kiss the face of the prey
and then taste what had become on reflection
more delicious and desirable than a deer.