Texas Nocturne

The laciest of snows, all shawls and doilies,
swirled over the lamplit streets of Austin as

we spread a pallet of quilts by an orange
glow, a tang of scorching dust, and tattered

Confederate ghosts drifted down from
the attic to glare at us like maddened owls;

but the snow didn't; it whispered at the sill,
desperate we should enjoy the brief June

of thigh on thigh; so when our dazed pallet
unstrung its moorings and floated us over

a synod of chairs, past Calvinist drapes, a
prudent clock, when the papered walls

arced outward like petals, the ceiling dissolved
in something like death only sweeter, we

curled in upon ourselves like a blossom
closing, the erotic opiates of twenty drifting us

out of time, the chaste snowflakes melting
around us without ever touching our skin.

The Briar Cliff Review, (2010) 22: 20.