Love Song (poem)

okay, all right:

we have understood you, July.

you are dripping down our fingertips and sliding down the spine;

your tongue laps at our ribcages and we shift hotly, uncomfortable;

we wipe you off the skin.

your sensuality is so blatant that you bore me.

I sit on the sidewalk and I watch the flowers preening;

my mouth is twisted in a sneer as I rip a petal into shreds.

you show like a peacock, brilliant blues and greens;

we kneel in adulation,

but when you are not looking we turn our faces to the grey.

sweat skitters down my back, down my forehead,

between my breasts and between my legs.

like a tango dancer, you held me close and made me wet,

and I felt your sticky finger tracing lines across my neck.

I smell you, July, and you smell of decay.

trick us with the colors, tongue lapping languid down the spine,

but I know you, and you are rotting.

the colors grow smug and lurid and I know that you are dying.

you fear October in the air so you turn on your charms,

beckoning your legions to the lake and basking in their sharp relief,

but you know that August will be on us as quickly as you came.

you make the lake flat and white, you make the sky empty and white.

you wield your thunderstorms like a toy, but you are impotent:

the air pulses hot and bright,

and you are beautiful but you bore me;

you tremble, you shiver, and you barely exist.