A Leaf Between Two Autumns

The coffee grounds are cold now,
their fortune left unsaid—
a bitter taste still lingers
where your lips once touched the bread.

The crane flies low and calls out,
its cry a rusty thread;
it sews the hem of my last cry
into a shroud for what has fled.

You took the east wind in your hair,
I kept the west in mine—
now every whistle on the plain
is a needle dipped in wine.

The lute hangs mute upon the wall,
its strings like veins grown blue.
What song can fill a room whose roof
was once the sky for two?

A pomegranate splits alone—
its seeds are teeth that bleed.
No hand to share the sweet or sour,
just the ghost of an old creed.

So let the dark sea carry
this unlit cigarette,
this half‑read letter, this deep grief
that neither time nor death has met.

And if a wandering minstrel sings
of hills that learn to grieve—
know that every parting
is a spring without a leaf.

Copyright © 2026 Oguz Kaan Öcal

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