When they say someone is driven to distraction
can’t stop thinking about …
I imagine
a woman running in the rain
newspaper overhead, painted nails
pursed lips, the crook of a smile despite
her hose getting wet, soaking her clavicle, glistening like
some jewel in a torrent might
suddenly fruit
it reminds me of the first time I heard Suzanne Vega sing
not knowing she was singing for a woman
but something in the detail caught my eye
how she felt the same hot breath, steaming glass
lost bra strap, showing slip, untucked blouse
a stray hair, falling in her eyes, it took all of my
self possession not to reach across and brush it
back into place
although I’d rather press my face
into her neck and lose myself to the sound
of rain and tempests, growing inside me
wordlessly showing her the crocheted waves
with every brush stroke
a painting cannot be completed without
sufficient water and concentration
much like a woman cannot be pleasured without
the breath of sea and infinite patience
it is like learning an instrument
your fingers growing sore in repetition and as they
tire, music is formed, her mouth opening
throat reddened, thighs dampening, heat climbing
you find yourself approaching
a cusp of wonder without worthy language
to describe, its motion
when I am tired, sorrowful, when I feel wan daylight
setting behind me, proffering dusk and your absence keenly
I close my eyes and feel her in every song
that girl beneath the awning, trying to close her
umbrella, her shapely legs and slender ankles
breasts rising against damp silk, in one long sigh
there are passions within us
that have teeth and fire
where hunger is a permanence
just like the silver locket hanging
about your neck and how if you play with it
I find myself needing to be
that silver, that shape, that falling
between you, against your skin, as if we can possess
another which we never can and so we try
again and again
thinking up ways
as coffee grows cold
as people flit in and out
hardly noticing the girl
who sits alone
wrapped in thought of you
a blunt pencil by her side
writing
in invisible ink
the landscape of a
woman
lost in rain
