When Love Wears Empty Pockets

I carry no roses, only the dust of my journey,

yet in your eyes I plant orchards of forever.

My shirt is torn, but the wind stitches it

with hymns only the poor can hear at dusk.

The world mocks the man whose coins are silence,

but I write wealth on your palms with my breath.

Love, they say, is a bird fed on golden crumbs,

but ours drinks rainwater from tin cups.

Your laughter is the roof I cannot buy,

your touch the blanket my wages could not weave.

Let them build mansions with currencies of glass—

I will build a kingdom from the patience of stars.

For even a beggar, when kissed by dawn,

owns a sunrise the rich cannot purchase.