My sky is ashen. Scratch my back. And undo slowly, you stranger, my braids. And tell me what's on your mind. Tell me what crossed Youssef's mind. Tell me some simple talk . . . talk a woman always desires to be told. I don't want the phrase complete. Gesture is enough to scatter me in the rise of butterflies between springheads and the sun. Tell me I am necessary for you like sleep, and not like nature filling up with water around you and me. And spread over me an endless blue wing . . . My sky is ashen, as a blackboard is ashen, before writing on it. So write with my blood's ink anything that changes it: an utterance . . . two, without excessive aim at metaphor. And say we are two stranger birds in Egypt and in Syria. Say we are two stranger birds in our feathers. And write my name and yours beneath the phrase. What time is it now? What color is my face and yours in new mirrors? I own nothing for anything to resemble me. Did the water mistress love you more? Did she seduce you by the sea rock? Confess now that you have extended your wilderness twenty years to stay prisoner in her hands. And tell me what you think of when the sky is ashen . . . My sky is ashen. I resemble what no longer resembles me. Do you want to return to your exile night in a mermaid's hair? Or do you want to return to your home figs? For no honey wounds a stranger here or there? So what time is it now? What's the name of this place we're in? And what's the difference between my sky and your land. Tell me what Adam said in secret to himself. Was he emancipated when he remembered. Tell me anything that changes the sky's ashen color. Tell me some simple talk, talk a woman desires to be told every now and then. Say that two people, like you and me, can carry all this resemblance between fog and mirage, then safely return. My sky is ashen, so what do you think of when the sky is ashen?