from A Sofia Notebook

from A Sofia Notebook

from A Sofia Notebook

Always you surprise me but never more
than when you announced “Your number is nine.”
I’ve read enough to know this is so,
allow myself superstitious pride in it –
three times three, magical mystical number.
Nines are rare and I was only guessing
in answering “It takes one to know one.”
You smiled, I smiled: two nines are eighteen;
in numerology, that is nine.
You went on “Your colours are grey and black –
you know, silvery grey with dark bits
like a feather shed by a pigeon.”
I know the colours of the moon –
white, red, and black – but not my own,
perhaps they alter with moods and seasons.
Always easier to spy
colours of others – yours: silver and black…
Our days nearing their end, alone I wander
streets around the bulbous golden
onion domes of Alexandra Nevsky
searching for the right gift – find a bracelet
of silver with studs of black onyx:
silver for you are silver-tongued,
black for the storm of your dusky curls
and eyes the bluish black of ripe olives.
The jeweller, looking at me askance,
goes with my wishes: removes the tenth stud.