Anemone Coronaria

If my heart were a flower,

you would know how to pluck it with your beauty—

though I have always despised the plucking of roses.

You would carry it far away into a world only I know with you,

upon the shores of Palestine

I have known for a thousand lifetimes—

and in another life,

when we were like butterflies

resting upon a single bloom.

In distance, when I speak to you

from behind the screens,

something trembles inside me—

my constant struggle with everything:

with my homeland, and with you—

in a car,

on a mountain road as beautiful as you.

I love you as if you were everything—

O most beautiful of causes,

O my spoiled child.

• River