Four Black Coots
Under a blanket of prairie grasses,
beneath a thunder moon, masses
of lampyridae play tag with lover’s hands.
A night smothered in 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 Compline.
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.
Author: Stephen Barile
Photo: Stephen Kopnev on Unsplash
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