Ooze, oud. Ease hearts whose eyes sink low.
Be hourglass in the pillaged O—.
Be wells none see. Unstoppered tears,
O oud, we gather in your bowl.

O ladle of ores, scoop ink here
now seeping from the foreigner,
be sighs, O oud, and cloven aches
in the dark of millions of ears.

Be gift for famished wails and wakes
to lacks and flares and tented stakes,
the lonely outer sounds of sleeves
eating wind and drowning faces.

The oud’s a lovely ark that leaks
with tales and bromides we can’t keep,
and miles of ghosts before their sleep.
And miles of ghosts beneath our sleep.