Spring, late-afternoon

It's sixty-two degrees outside
and six, twenty-six in the evening.
The sky is bruised-blue, 
swollen with impending storm.
Calls of spring frogs
penetrate the windowscreen, 
though the still air cannot.
The setting sun casts
filtered blood-light
on white skinned trees.

And your soft, white, freckledness
stretched across the blue and pink 
hand-me-down quilt -
your fire-red hair
glowing with your own internal heat,
your musk-sandalwood-sweat scent
all conspire to distract me.
And I turn my head to contemplate
an alternative beauty.

Much later, the sky is dark.
The clouds, still there, 
have doused the fire in the sky,
but your fire, the heat inside you,
is still there -
even though you shared.

Kathleen Hover
03/29/03