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.