as the years of your life wear thinner

and the month of May is an instant

and the winter is still longer than the summer,

occasionally, when the winter of your heart rears in summer,

you must clasp it, warming the ventricles,

smoothing your palms over its surface,

without care for the blood that will stain your hands.

and the words of your father will ring in your ears as you console yourself,

or the wisdom imparted to you through the teachers, the priests, the wretched and destitute,

through your enemies and your elders,

they will be the assuagement through which you are salvaged.

6.9.2009