Naomi says
that a lover’s name gone too long unspoken
turns the pink of the mouth red
with the warm, metallic flavour of loss which has no word to call its own.

Mine is a mouthful of blood
from the split abscess of your name
unsaid,
I think now of love and god and all things that will change and unchange
that whirling and spinning dance;
and I pray: we never really went away, azizam;
come back.
come back for me.