The Last Time

With a sudden screech
Like hot rubber tires fighting
An asphalt road,
Your teeth clenched into
A tight comma,
In a moment that was
Otherwise so silent,
So complete in its irrelevance
That it never expected
An encounter so exclamatory...
Like prickly cacti on golden sand,
Goosebumps stood up to salute
Your finger as it traced
An untold story of love lost,
And love gained,
On the flesh of my arms...
Slowly, like candles,
We burned in the significance
Of our hands holding on
And our lips parting ways-
Only to unite after
The briefest of separations...
When you smelled of musk,
And a warm summer's day,
And the earth and its kin;
And I hid beneath layers
Of silk and sheets,
And a bashful shade of red,
And you pushed on, looking
Deep into my eyes, as if
Boring a well to extract my very soul-
I remember the sunlight
That slithered out of a sliver
And onto your back
That was now arching in
The joy of culmination,
And in the anguish of knowing
That this was the end
Of a torrid afternoon dedicated
To polar opposites
As they pretended to love...