You were prepared — You had practised the moves, rehearsed the scene. First, you would offer to hang her coat. Then, invoke a resemblance to Ava, dark chestnut on apricot cream. At some point, you would light her cigarette and she would understand, as you accidentally brushed her hand, that this was simply an invitation to have coffee, to forget her exam, to miss her bus, to depart her world, to get on a boat,

The genes — the pull of my grandfather’s train, the Missouri tracks and the dress she wore, his first love, as she lay barefoot on the wet Midwestern grass. The genes — the pull of my grandfather’s sword, the horse he wanted me to ride, an Arab horse, indifferent to Slavic fury and Persian saddles. The genes. Is there perhaps something lost in-between? A secret will, an encrypted text, an idle screen?

As though to prove the gates are never quite completely sealed, the names never fully disclosed, I’m awakened at dawn and led to the cloistered courtyard. My eyes, still carrying the scent of night, are asked a question — What exactly is a child doing near the turquoise fountain of Christ? The fountain denied to millions, the fountain you once believed was reserved for twelve. My eyes, kissed by early rays of light,

In this land what remains will be gathered — from those who tore down Grozny to the guards of Moscow’s slums. And they will be seduced, sirens of death will overwhelm the empire’s sons. The sky knows them well — from the nets of their eyes to the maps of their thumbs, to the scent of Iscariot’s silver fermenting in their lungs. They rain fire on the wilderness of Damascus, and they march to Goebbels’ drums.

Clinically insane — Planting the same seeds, Still expecting to sit In the shade of different trees.

You start singing inside me suddenly violently. You don’t care if I’m on the train waiting for coffee praying with a child confessing to the rain. And I imagine you dressed in skin anointed with lemon zest airbrushed with sin arriving at dusk in a Tarantino scene glued to the ceiling staring down in my dreams. A Damascene waltz a sacred invitation to stand and dance round and round to sensual glass

When you finally chose to wake me up it was nearly sunset. My fridge nearly empty. My home nearly vacant. My world nearly auctioned. And my bed cluttered with the dust of summits and lesser men.

She arrives with a flute, a Siberian pied piper with the gaze of a coot, her hair is braided beneath a white papakha, her hand is faded into a kinzhal at her waist, hopelessly erotic, infrequently chaste. She feeds you silver as she plucks your claws, bleeds your tongue as she recites your flaws. Sixty-six edicts are nailed to your chest. Her name is signed in icons, her lips blow vaporized zest. She arrives as prey,

From these pixelated graveyards you pull me out. I remind you I am expected to speak, to share an eulogy in memory of my home. But your eyes are dismissive, they misquote Luke: Let these waves mourn their own foam. It all seems so wrong, but I come along. You carry me to Paillard, gliding across a Parisian moon. The cognac arrives, for me a tulip, for you a balloon. And I can tell you are now smiling