Love poem

I'm looking
for the man with figs
in his ears.
He can give me
clementines
for my heart. He
has the creamy
moon in his pocket.
I'm hungry for it.

The woman with
the coral braids
told me I might
find him, sitting
on the sea.
I had to shake
her broken shells
on the ground
and whisper ash
over them, praying
to the dusky fire
for love and penance.

When I found him,
it was as if he made
himself from shell,
brittle and hard.
He held up
a mirror to my face,
and looked at it
in another behind me.
He smiled. The man
with the figs
in his ears, the man
made of shells.