Kassi's last dance

he hates driving in the rain
says it reminds him
of air-brushed birds

a small white car and pieces
of a prom dress ragging
out of shattered glass
like a dove’s broken wing

how they pulled her out
through holes cut in the roof
blood sweating from the leaves
of the pink corsage pinned over her heart

he told me for weeks
his dreams had been filled
with poppies and crows

hot springs

We first lay down among flowers.
A moon flower in your hand
scents a course across my lips

to hips that mock the splay
of petals, your mouth, a night
moth following pollen fortune.

Gravity abandons and we rise,
climbing the cusp of Venus
to a heaven pillowed
in the wings of Pleiades.

Thighs interlaced, we dive
and tumble earthward.
Star jeweled, our bodies

facets of a spinning pavilion
plunge into the misty veil
of Loftus Springs where nature’s heat

slides over an arc of rock
and ripples recite
the magnitude of our waves.

************************
Author's Note:
This poem was written for a poetry challenge with the following parameters:

Write an erotic poem about making love in water that begins with the following first line and uses all of the following five nouns and five verbs.

We first lay down among flowers.

thighs
pavilion
hand
fortune
bodies

mock
pillowed
recite
jeweled
abandons

Thanks to Zen Master Ikkyu for the word list and first line.

swallowing the sun

Sparrows forage through thorns
for a taste of clustered sun,
morning glitters a crystal
frost etching the edge
of a dragon-wing leaf.

Winter’s chill shifts as January
dives into lesser degrees
and gathered sticks hold
a promise of fervent heat.

May will plait crowns
for fairies and angels
who dance night blessings
among evergreen amulets.

But tonight, we’ll drift
a snowfall moon.
Day is a hawthorn berry
swallowed.

drunken fingers

she is trying to unlock him
through a grape haze,
but her hands fumble at the keys
and the backspace is littered
with the letters she trips over

she flattens her hand
over the base of the Waterford
stem on the counter and dips
her fingers in the bowl of merlot

pinning the glass in place,
she traces the rim with her wet
index leisurely, decisively until
the crystal sings.