Sweet Heat
      By JoHannah P. Green

Sticky,
June, midnight air
oozes through the open window,
ignores the blood red curtains,
dotted with tiny, fuchsia flowers and
small curling leaves of silvery green-
pushes past me like
a drunk in a crowded bar.
I run a sweaty hand through my hair.
I know you are out there.
I can smell you.

I’ve taken off
everything
and still the perspiration slides
down my bare neck
down my bare back
adding salt that diffuses and dries,
stiffening the rose-patterned, linen sheets
that rise and fall with my quickening breath.
I know you are coming.
I can smell you.

My eyes search in the darkness
until they find you.
Huge. Dark. Dangerous.
Stalking me.
A predator fixated on its prey.
The prey sits motionless,
anticipating; eyes locked on you;
heat pulsing through every part of my body.
I can smell you.

An electric flicker jumps across the sky.
I wonder it you even notice.
I feel your power begin to boil
pouring toward me.
I lean back and moan, feeling
the air shift between us.
Your strong smell fills my nostrils.
My lips part, trembling
waiting to receive the first drops
of hot rain as your storm clouds
break over me.

Trees gesture wildly as your winds
heave aside all such puny defenses,
You tear at the flimsy curtains, and
your rain - now cold -
flings itself against/past,
the screen of my bedroom window,
and sprays a fine mist over my naked shoulders.

I let the winds and rain play
across my lips as I taste the droplets.
Your smell has changed.
I draw the rain-clean scent into my lungs.
I doze
and waken with my hair cool and damp
against my arm and
bright stars shining in the storm-washed sky.