Something like Lust

Julia Mishkin

Slow down: that buzzard
is hanging from the branches.
It's hiding in your room with something
like lust in its eyes.
It wants to touch you.
But you know the dangers, the simple
cotton canopies, the lattice-work
paper on the walls.
You can smell it.

Remember the night you danced
in the apricot dress
until dawn. No,
not dawn: the light still
burning, and no more
music . . . Forget it,
the cut that doesn't show.
The blood that doesn't stain.
It's through with you.
Forget the length of this one's hair
and that one's name.