after b’stilla, before the morning

her hair
infused with chai
spice of hot tea and
honey drops

saffron threaded
'round the bare
of her neck

and the sweat from
heat of night
dripped
dissolved
the delicacy
'til drizzling
down her chest
infusing her skin
with desert marinade

and the drums played
louder
the smoke of bubbled meat
mixing with torching flame
fugitive temptation
from the heavy tajine
buried below

and he placed the remains
of the charmoula on her stomach
and devoured the meal
as slowly as permitted
drinking her sex from her navel
rising in the fall of rapid breath

and the shadows danced
along her length
feisty fairies waving feathered fronds
in the sea‐flung wind

and the feast
from the coal‐glow
dissolved into shreds of lamb
on her heated tongue
teasingly falling from his
roughened fingers

only softened by the
pumice of her curves
the dark curls
falling over dark eyes
hiding the blush from view

rising from a wandering
caress

and a whispered hush

periodic

the sky is a dingy shade of grey
bringing no promise of rain
leaving Hope sitting on the horizon
blue eyes clogged and polluted

if I were rain drops
I'd sear beyond point of vaporization
before ever plinking against that fissured skin

I'd move drunkenly
in the void of interaction
between positive
neutral
negative colloidals
until collapsing

stick figure graffiti against a blank wall

it's too hot to sit still and liquefy
so I wander from room to room

the world is unstable

in the interim
I am occupied
with partitioning my mind into isomers
staring into the eyes of my poorly made copies
until vision is blurred
epithets slurred
against them that touch the world

in such a skin‐flinching reality
how is Einsteinium to compete with Helium
noble gases
merely occupy themselves with their
perfection

there is character in complexity
and you are nothing more
than Hydrogen