the summer's burn

The sun, mad with lust, reaches out in this hot midday, touching my shoulders with a burning kiss 

Worming inside me, hot and scalding. I shift in my tank top, lifting my head 

My evaporating blue eyes, up to the sky. 

I mouth thank you. I have missed her, the sun. 

She smiles back, and I bask, oh I bask, I have left my pain behind me. 

But the smell of flesh drifts up towards my nose, tomato- red and aching,

Screaming, pulling my skin off in charred, blackened chunks. 

You’ve forgotten me, the winter sings,

You’ve forgotten me, and now you will pay. 

When I pull on my father’s green jacket, half dead from the cold 

Her blush still peels on my nose.

Flakey and white and yes, it is right,

I have forgotten. 

The sun goes down, after all. 

The winter is here now, he is a dark lover, 

He has no time for such things. 

And I am tired, not in the warm sleepy way, 

But bone-tired, sluggish, biting. 

When I come home, his things are on the counter, I must put them up. 

His slippers step on my ankles, he makes the bed 

frigid. He is, I think, my worst enemy. 

I miss you, sun, I miss your kisses, abrasive as they were, 

His leave me

unsatisfied.