an idle thought on a hot day in Winter

where sunlight is welcome, even its lusty intrusion

on the quietude of cold’s fitful thaw

when I think of her – a stranger really, yet

the bones of her – achingly familiar

how in different worlds we may

have lain together in fusion

soldering rocks bonded beneath earth to become

over time, precious

where I was not fractured and hiding

and she caught prisms in her eyes

running breathless, like a girl hewn of rare mineral

beneath the ceiling fan, white shutters closed in repose

the reflection of Moroccan screens

their intricacies, laying like alphabet on her gleaming skin

saffron, vertiver, night-rose, how many years

critiqued by fools, sycophants, creators of naught

attempting to fell her liberate spirit with the vanquishing

hunger of merciless people of deep fault lines

she almost broke into shards, elongation, ice spears

like lost stalagmites regretting emergence

yet she resisted, is whole like elderflower in clay jug

she fills me with longing, I wilt in her presence

density of her tread as she absorbs time

fills the air with her perfume, catchment of salt

glittering on sun dappled skin, woman in her element

as exquisitely woven as the rug beneath her feet

as soft as butter, cream, fur, caramel

her mouth a cave of words, shape, taste, color

lips of blackcurrant, daydream, Pernod, new coins

there are places I want to go with her

that involve no travel – no ticket

she makes me hunger on a full belly

sweat beneath my clothes just watching her walk

crave to touch the cliff of her cheekbones

bind myself in the shining fall of her hair

she could kill a person with her beauty

murder with her acumen

and those things mean nothing against

the gentleness of her soul –

opening to me like a lotus

emerging from turquoise water

full and golden and basking

in the amber gaze of afternoon love