Under a blanket of prairie grasses,

beneath a thunder moon, masses

of lampyridae play tag with lover’s hands.

A night smothered in tinny sounds and bands

of cicadas, clang of pig feeders, windmill vanes

creaking in a shifting breeze. The rain

of June stars splatters on your skin

It is completion, an evening complin.

 

I trace from lip to alabaster neck,

the line made straight, despite the body wrecked.

With my lips I can burn my words

into your flesh, a brand light as a bird’s

wing, feathering your shoulder, a shadow

at night I can only see. A tableau

of a prairie night, the moon, man, and me.