Before you came,
things were just as they should be:
the sky was simply the limit of what I could see,
the road was just a road, wine was simply wine.

Now everything feels like my heart,
a color somewhere between life and blood:
the gray of your absence, the color of poison, of thorns,
the gold when we meet, a season bursting into flame,
the yellow of autumn, the red of flowers, of fire,
and the black when you cover the earth
with the ashes of dead fires.

And the sky, the road, the glass of wine?
The sky is a shirt soaked in tears,
the road a vein ready to burst,
and the glass of wine a mirror in which
the sky, the road, the whole world keep changing.

Don't leave now that you're here—
stay, so the world can become itself again:
so the sky can be the sky,
the road a road,
and the glass of wine not a mirror,
but simply a glass of wine.