It’s August.
September’s on the way.
This is the time
when she weighs
herself down
with lists, classes, meetings
chores have-tos and
should-dos.
A kind of lust
Has come in.
The sea wants
to carry her away
to a foreign country.
With or
without her family.
With or
without saying
Good-bye.
With or
without coming back.
No thought of returning now-
only flight.
A kind of lust,
so hard to resist.
But resisted, oppressed.
Desire.
She doesn’t know why
it has to be this way.
Or at least why
it has been this way.
Part of her is already gone.
There is a vacancy in her
face and
in her body.
She is
turning, like the leaves,
toward the sinking sun.
The draw to follow him
down.
Down to the
south.
Italy, France, Spain
Or Africa.
There.
Where the sun
never stops kissing his Earth
kisses her to death.
Desire.
Desire to walk
down crumbling stone streets
wearing high heals
which click and echo off the
ancient, mumbling walls
lined with old women in black and
children who stay up late.
Desire to hold orange blossoms
in her hand
And feel her own dress
swing and brush her legs.
To hear the voices of the men
smoking on their apartment
balconies.
The music
drifting from somewhere
just ahead.
The smells
pressing in.
Heavy, thick lust.
To feel the men wanting her.
Desire for all of them.
To abandon all notions
of right and wrong or
consequence.
The half-asleep mistiness of all of it.
A far-away question
floats by,
She doesn’t
know
How this
will
turn
out.