Summer Night Insomnia

what is the color of your love?
what is the shape of its melody?

your face, a silken flower, red hibiscus
in a mirror’s moist reflection

sweat weeps from your August hair
green fingers, tangled vines of ivy
your absence burns me

your shoulder’s arch, branded in my dreams
my mouth begs, consume me
tear me in two

I am a melting flame, I am a scalding sea
full of firefly breath, orchid silence

riveted by night of pepper and torn stars
desire shorn of its skin

peel my flesh, drenched and tender
arctic steam, tropical ice
I throb with hunger and need

violent unwinding, a top spinning backward
gyrating, glistening jungle

black perspiration on a beetle’s shell
skin of a whale
hot soil, cold sky

a ring hugs the finger, a chest in its suit
my tongue craves in its cave

why can’t I fit in my four-cornered box
turnip limp and cadaver blank
instead— mind throttles, crescendo crests

voice clear as rum, slick as gin
a black snake slides into the creek

blood orange, white pear
fingertips pluck string, palms cradle wood
I relinquish myself in drink or dream

clenched ankle, clutched wrist, shattered glass
singed hair, flexed toes
make my overtones vibrate

crickets rub spindly thighs
seared by song, sliced by strings, drowned by flute
creatures merge and separate in the night

what is the shape of your love?
what is the color of its melody?