Friday Poetry: Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai
Gifts of Love

I gave them to you
for your clothes, your fingers. I gilded
the time on your wrist,
I hung a lot of glittery things on you
so you'd sway for me in the wind, so you'd
chime softly over me
to soothe my sleep.

I comforted you with apples, as it says
in the Song of Songs,
I lined your bed with them,
so we could roll smoothly on red apple-bearings.

I covered your skin with a pink chiffon
transparent as baby lizards—the ones with
black diamond eyes on summer nights.

You helped me to live for a couple of months
without needing religion
or a point of view.

You gave me a letter opener of silver.
Real letters aren't opened that way;
they're torn open,
torn, torn.