Notes on a Handkerchief's Edge

                       I
Like your eyelids' commotion
the blood moves at the nape
the nape of your neck, when down
your back there pours the marvel
your combing reveals.
                       II
In my hand the traits
of your heart, memento
of when you were here
in the hand that I bite.
                      III
The butterfly encumbering
your sky each evening
with its shadow's
transience, lights on your shoulder
to look like a rose.
                     IV
Your spotless soul,
your lazy essence of an
angel! Hot as flame
your ear of a tigress
rests against my cheek.
                      V
            The fiery
flower lies tattered in the gardens.
You finger the branches. And dive
in a thicket of shade, in love
with the dark.

Leonardo Sinisgalli