Not distant, small

The gift I bring
is not this shawl
to match your leopard face -
through you may take it -
but a word: you grow too thin.

Where you are going
women cannot hide -
you’ll wear the kind of smile
that puckers in.

See how I touch myself
and don’t touch you?
We keep our hands
and gestures out of view -
we always have.

The hills that seem
to sit on the horizon
are not distant -
they are small.

The trees will never
be enough to lash
together into rafts -
they’d splinter anyway.

It is too green,
this tinted land.
The solid walls of Homs
are not yet built.