If I were a painter I would have painted
those two curls of hair drooping across your forehead
and half covering your downward looking eyes.
I would have given the shade of a night's black to your eyes
and that of an elephant's black to your curls.
For your brows I would char a tree and use that black.
I would paint only the curls, your brows and your eyes
and not your face or even your lips
because I don't want to be the stone on which you are etched.
I want to keep the curls falling forever,
to be the cupped palms into which honey is poured forever
and from which it leaks forever.
