A Storm at Night

That night the young man opened the window
as the storm slid across the velvet mountains.
The sweat of summer air flushed his turbid face
Like women's breath at a drunken party,
warm and sour, the violet effluvia
leaving him regretful, uxorious.

June’s solstice lingered in his home with some
clandestine odor of verdancy—gleaned
from the crepuscular whispers of trees;
Silly ladies gossiping languidly.
The light of June hyper-ventilated
Around his dingy lamp, moth-like, love-like.

The young man gazed into the buxom air,
Seduced by some already-begun dream.
Silver raindrops shimmered softly in the
husky honeyed drip of Virginian air.
While storm-haze perfumed across the mountains,
A cascade like dreams on blue-dark mountains.

And there in the darkness while the twilight
shivered beneath trees that held the secret,
The young man caroused within the fecund air
and pooled the water and the haze against him.
Sweat of storm like fragile adultery,
the roiling night kissed him, and was soon gone.