You are my late September,  
When spring has long been forgotten  
With its newness, lush green and raindrops.  
The rambunctious giddy splendor of sweaty palms  
And arterial palpitations.  

You are not summer, hot and dripping,  
Air thick, smothering with inescapable heat,  
Panting breaths and desperate lips.  
Perhaps once or twice as we revolved around each other,  
If night airs could tell tales.  

You are not winter,  
Though we have shared Decembers.  
There is no place for you in my snow tipped trellises.  
No coordinate in my circumference that would hold you in ice,  
Frozen and forgotten under rippled white blankets,  
Though perhaps, under wrinkled white sheets.  

You are not fall,  
When autumn turns the ground dirt and dull.  
Trees shedding their raiments  
And reaching naked for the sky.  
Surrendering to the inevitability of winter’s approach,  
Drawing sap down to their rootwork,  
Waiting for another spring  

You are my late September,  
The earth still warm between my toes  
With the remembrance of summer suns.  
More vibrant than spring, and wiser than summer.  
Leaves full of tree-song  
Brilliant gold and fire,  
Blood orange and melancholy yellows,  
Blazing in defiant glory.

I spent weeks  
and months  
and years  
carefully collecting you.  
gathering your pieces  
and promises  
like stars plucked from the night  
and placed in my pocket.  

each moment  
that your lips held my name,  
that you called me your home  
and whispered forever  
into my veins.  

But forever never lasts.  
the stretching out of our infinities
cut short,  
toppled-  
in a few days,  
a few minutes,  
a few words.  

my years of  loving labor  
smashed into  
stardust.

Haughty words
of wine and new lovers
frolic on your lips;
and fall on me with daggers and Greek fire.
To turn my insides to opposition
coiled with serpent knots,
staying my eyes from slumbering fantasies,
for it is retribution who hangs the stars on the night.

I fear you have cut deeper than I had permitted
when you set your steel against my ribs;
but let me not drink too heavily
from the cup of self-pity.

This was not undeserved,
earned with pleasantries and ingratitude;
but rather double edged words,
playing smoke and mirrors
to conceal my cowardly suspicions of defeat.

Finally, I have lost my appetite
for this ****** game.
My armor is worn and blood rusted,
exposing the wounds I have been rewarded
from years of waging war.

Perhaps there is still redemption
from the blood-stains on my sword.

Did she notice,
when she walked down into my eyes
that my sight stole my voice?
To return in stuttered, half compliments
of flitting words.
too flimsy to hold the heart.

Did she notice my staring gaze,
my eyes, casting timid glances
while I searched myself for eloquent words
to tell her my knees were weak,
and my heart was beating
with good dishonourable intentions.

Wrapped in midnight
and pink hued sunset horizons.
Hiding some and alluding to others,
the woman curved beneath the clothes.

Her hair up, in golden silk curls
to celebrate tonight
with full passioned lips
smacking of sultry invitations,
and drowning deep sea eyes.
Sporting a breathless smile
and black heels.
While I feel so ordinary and tedious,
dressed in my fine suit
and matching offsets.

She takes my hand
so everyone can see
that she is mine.
And now I am alive.

How beautifully she shines;
beyond the limit of the eyes
to the scope of the heart
and the extent of the soul,
that see in different dimensions
than sights' perception can go.
To unmask the splendor
behind the face.

For this is what pulls the strings
of my surrendering;
A man and clothes
may make each other,
but a woman
will make him feel it.

So innocently devious
in naive treachery.

More than a fancy walk
Could steal a man's glance
And invite a sparkling collar.
Or soft spoken passion compel the flesh
To gratify its hot appetite.

To speak elegantly of this and that,
And trap me in the stillness of your voice.
All the while you trickle down my vein
And melt away my heart's wall.
Brick by brick,
To my very foundation.

How freely you throw out these kind gestures
That hang me from your words,
And fill my head with empty waiting thoughts.
How carelessly you stole this
From under my ribs,
With a sideways eye and a smile
held in soft lips.
To dance across the room
And ****** it with a whisper.

Beautiful thief.