Bleached cloth hardly brushing
bare skin, brillo bush like a bristle brush;
shuffling shadows of leaves flicking, licking,
teasing the bedroom wall's flatness;
three stars in a line: three bright, tight bitch-nipples,
erect, on the barrel ribs of the night sky;
syrupy night air on legs, akimbo,
air way up to billy-oh,
abandoned next to the pulsing cicada heat of bedding-
the woolen stuffing and the mattress harbouring
the insane and whining heat of solitary sleep;
light and shadow wrapped tight and suffocating on a leg,
like a skin-thin stocking;
the shadow of my lifted leg
sleek and still and poised polished on the wall,
raised amongst the stroking leaves-
slide, quiver, swipe... shift,shuffle, dab...
sweep, rustle, dip... shiver, slither, slip...
luscious leaf-play of shadows and
breathy hush of air damping
against the night's taut eardrums:
sssh...hisss...