Sunday 12 October 2014

A Hot Summer Night


Standing at the window
you slip your arms around my waist
and kiss my bare shoulder
I lean back into you
and lay my head on your chest

How softly the night
folds around us
The moon, sleepy yet, rises,
grandiloquent in her
lace patterned negligee
beguiled by the gloaming

Bats, necromancers of the night,
flittering fragments
of darkness,
excite the sullen summer air
as they frolic, reveling in the gloom

The sweet smell of moon flowers
glissades through the window
carried on the chorus 
of crickets
singing to arouse the stars

A moth seduced by the
candle light
flurries into the room
throwing shadows across
the walls
as it flutters and pirouettes
around the flame

I hold my breath
spellbound
You place your hands
on my shoulders
run them gently down
my arms
and cup my hands in yours

lifting up my hands
you scoop up the flailing moth
and ever so tenderly
you close my cupped hands
around it

Confined between
our hands the moth
 vibrates and thrashes
I feel the pulse and throb
of its wing beats
against my palms

I feel too the pulse and throb
of your heart on your palms
pressed against my hands
Its beat, familiar, like that
of velvet wings

You blow out the candle
and open my hands
the moth clings to my palm
blowing gently
you release it into the night

You draw me into you
I feel your heat
my heart flutters

 Encircled in your arms
 I begin to understand
the burning desire
of the moth 
to kiss the flame
©Rose