Her tiny breasts, dancers curved back

Silver earrings, steel grey hair, wet black eyes

We talk around, our varied folded desires

Hers may be, driving home in dusty truck to

A brown man who works with his hands

He can lift her and they dance at dusk, beneath solstice blossom

She feels she’s come a long way, her reedy soul throbs

Through back roads with weary curves, street lights illuminating her angular shape

And my desire is a velvet flame, like slow monarch flutters, trying to keep pace with winged migration

She is the swelling of a slow breathing, southern land

Shimmering in undulate mountains

Emptied of life, save thin cayote, sharp against moon

I am low to earth, crawling toward her wrist

Breathing the pulse of a woman, her careful sensuality

Turning in darkness, multilayered

Impossible to tame