You decorate my bed
With masculine flowers,
With birds of paradise-
You tell me
I am not pieces
Of a puzzle
But a rainbow
Reassembled of tinsel
And gold.
You call me by all the names of the moon:
Opal of the auction,
Second-hand beauty,
Broken son
Of the night.
You solve crosswords by my side
But in my dreams
You are a parrot
On my shoulder
Repeating to me
All the riddles
I can think of.
You call my disease
My fatal flaw,
Impurity in the rock
That turns the diamond red.
We were always
Solitary dreamers,
Holding umbrellas
Only for ourselves
Until we took shelter
Under one giant tree
In a terrible storm.
We took a final tour
Of the archipelago
Of our youth-
A ring of fire
Which I now see
As a pinprick
Of light,
And in that light
I see us:
A moth
And a butterfly.
I could never tell them apart
But they circle the same flame
Somewhere in the night:
We do
You did
I do.
-24 May 2026
Revised 15 June 2026
