lashes black and wet and
shaped like little
bolts.

we watched fireflies and I
licked your earlobes,
tried your fingers on
while I played with truths;
denied them.
felt your chest pressed against mine.
we clanked with ease
and I took in the scene of two people
unclothed and unseen
underneath some crescent innuendo
in your backyard
without friendship between them;
without people between them and I dared
to stare in a way that endures more than
deciduous planting.

I broke at the
not now
you spoke back
with a masculine fragility
I had never known     envied,
tried on later with pants,
unplucked eyebrows
and alone.
you became all red and
graceless,  I became an unwatched bull
headed to your porch,
snorting and you were
bare faced and guarded in all the ways
I have yet to learn.
I’m so obvious:

a scarlet blaze that starts with a joke,
two bodies parting,
an unreturned question that ends
with a sharp exclamation,
annihilation of something.
ends with a reminder from someone higher
to stop destroying something
to eliminate one part.
I am a wave of coercion
pulling you in and under
when I should have been
patient;
when I should have been laid in the grass
gently  next to the ant hills
where you can learn my thighs,
breasts,
spine,
toes curled without injury;
when I should have been pausing to notice
there are no people between us;
when I should have been gracious,
with you and naked.

I remove the rest of my top
and close my eyes deliberately
to show you the length
of each thorn.
with my tongue pressed
against your chin,
my lips trace
your jaw       I say
more softly
than before:
you know,
I have never
become divine without
first becoming storm.

“Scorpio”