Candlelight dancing off the rippling bathwater,
The steam rising off it with an aroma
So sweet,
From the herbs steeped in it,
I’m a goddess,
An empress,
And my nectar is the red wine
Chilled to my preference,
The delicate stem dangling from my fingertips
And I watch.
As the coolness drifts off the glass in lazy tendrils,
Dancing over the surface of the heated water.
I part my lips and exhale gently onto the curve of it
Until the twirling fingers of cold opposing the heat
Swirl desperately,
My breath is the master,
The air the puppet,
And I tilt my head at the first notes of a song that draws me back,
Back to a liason in the dark
With an exotic lover,
The French words slipping over my skin
As silkily as his lips did,
Each verse reminding me of how we celebrated those verses then,
Raucously
Remorselessly
Hedonistically,
Almost as I do now,
With my ambrosia and my rose petals dancing among sprigs of herbs on the water,
With an orchestra hailing my memory,
All by the light of countless,
Flickering
flames.
