Tending Fires
I wanted to write a sonnet last night,
because that's what lovers do, but the fire
needed tending, and all I could think of
were your shoulders, and that's not romantic,
so I put on another log, and thought
about that hot summer day underneath
that oak, when our shoulders brushed, and I blushed
at the nearness of you, and how we made
love that night . . . still . . . that's not what I wanted
to write . . . But it's you; you, my love. You are
my night and my morning, and the hot coals
beneath these logs . . . hear them hiss and whisper
like cicadas--cicadas of the trees,
and the summer, and of all things that burn.