He came to me in the spring,
in that February, snowflakes clicked out of dreams
like photographic snapshots, and with me
he sang, as if he knew how to sing and was alive.
Leaving no cross on my body, he called me to paradise,
washing away my red name from my palms with holy, melted water.
He wrote to me as if there was no one around,
he wrote quietly,
as if there were no plague-ridden people around,
he wrote, and with each word he became freer.
He knew that I would decipher his love like that.
And then people tried to separate us,
and said something like, “don’t misbehave,”
we kissed tenderly in the rain
from the tender fairy tale mentioned above,
and our skin became more exhausted,
and river streams flowed down our faces.