... i didn't fall in love of course it's never up to you but she was walking back and forth and i was passing through - Leonard Cohen

I don't remember
lighting this cigarette
and I don't remember
if I'm here alone
or waiting for someone.

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple.

Now our Nile has turned to blood
and in the cafes the scholars jest
about a cosmic wound.
Priests no longer smile
at our catalogue of charities
and even the beggars whom we pity and love
refuse our coins with a curse.