Be Near Me

You who demolish me, you whom I love, be near me. Remain near me when evening, drunk on the blood of the skies, becomes night, in its one hand a perfumed balm, in the other a sword sheathed in the diamond of stars. Be near me when night laments or sings, or when it begins to dance, its steel-blue anklets ringing with grief. Be here when longings, long submerged in the heart's waters, resurface and when everyone begins to look: Where is the assassin? In whose sleeve is hidden the redeeming knife? And when wine, as it is poured, is the sobbing of children whom nothing will console - when nothing holds, when nothing is: at that dark hour when night mourns, be near me, my destroyer, my lover, be near me.