One night, while I waited for you
I sat in the midwest summer heat, hot and sticky
like juice from a sun-ripened peach-
a balcony in the city, a small temple amidst the headlights and occasional sweet, gasping breezes
the house was asleep, settling in its aged wooden bones
while I wrote you poetry on its back.

you never arrived, but I felt somehow better for it:
the warm and pulsing beauty of my silent night's watch.