In the Heat of a Summer Night

It takes more than a fan

and four hours of sunless dark

to erase the heat from the day

and you from my mind

At times I yearn just to pick up the phone

and listen to the sound of you now

Out in the black of this August night

the full moon sprays passion in silvered light

upon everything it touches

the madness of lovers and poets

the crazy thoughts that skip across the dark

and the years that forget: time passes

It is then that I remember hiding in the barn

waiting for that silent silhouette to appear

that black form of you

framed by the edges

of weathered,

horse-kicked, age-battered doors

you, standing against the dusty stars

a milky way that you said you couldn’t see

yet so broad, it banded the sky behind your shoulders

and drew your body, larger and larger, upon its porous canvas

as you drew closer to me

Those warm soft nights of nickle-sheened light

spilled across the silence of arms enclosing

sweet naked sweat

born in shadows, straw and hay

and our breath

your watchful dog’s wagging tail

our only opponent, giving us and our secret away

The fan and the heat have fought this day

though neither have won the night or me

it is sleep that now begs this poet to bed

where passion will flicker

into tomes of dreams

and ashes of broken lovers

 

Thursday Poets Rally week 27

Photo: Google images at www.bjvicks.com/exposed/index.php?showimage=5

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