Shade of the sea, you secrete summer, laurel,
a sharp stone, a divine brow hinting at the edges
like certainty— arched, fixed, solid as
mother-of-pearl.

Margarita, margaritas stirred under the influence,
coaxed into the gullet by the straw of another—
a citrus tempo for the lonely.

Poise, a portico, infidelity like sand at the heel
—medusas, embryos with fingers like stars,
they drag to the heat, to the fractured marble of
footfall - how endless seems the need.

Your hand between thighs or against the lip;
small lakes of exchange that dissolve by daybreak.
Threading warmth into bone, seasons spent like
hours beneath the lilac moon.

-draft I