The Late Afternoon
I first took
notice of you
beneath your black
umbrella
was humid as drenched
gray terrycloth
wrung in the sky
by a giant,
phantom washerwoman,
spattering us
with fat, wobbling drops
of tepid rain.
It plastered your hair
to your forehead
like our sweat would
the first time
it mingled in darkness
and I looked down
at your closed eyelids,
your flared, pink nostrils,
your parted lips,
and your teeth streaked
with lipstick, quaking,
sunk into the blackness
of devourment.
