Always the Night
Her name is Mina and she's doing the hippy thing again, dancing to make him crazy. Safe, secure in her kitchen she sways, dip with the right hip, roll up, stretch with arms rising to full extent above her head, sway sinuous as cats laughing before dipping left into the start of the pattern, the straps of her camisole catching at her elbows.
Alex's eyebrows feel hot, hot enough to smoke, to turn the sweat sheening his forehead to steam.
And she continues, adding a twirl and shimmying the waistband of her long skirt down to rest on the jut of her hipbones, exposing the sweet hollow of her navel and the two freckles lower that form a sensual triangle. Dancing for herself, completely unaware of his presence.
Or is she?
Surely she can sense him. He always knows when she's in his orbit. As soon as she crosses the outer limits of his perceptions, hearing, sight, taste--they all twang sharper.
She starts to hum in time with the metronomic movement of her hips. Now he understands exactly what Roethke means with his "measure time by the way her body sways."
More than her lovely bones draw him. The strength of her spirit is magnetic--the lush bright jewel tones, the flow and curves denoting richness and generosity.
But not for him.
No, not for a dweller in midnight.
His fingers macerate the stem of the ice poppy. Juice stains his skin, stinging in the fine cuts, running down to swell the abrasions on his wrist.
He consigns the mangled flower to the earth, lets it tumble bloom over stem to the chill ground, and gathers his focus.
Dip, sway, arch of her spine, roll of her wrists, a hum curves her lips and pulls a dimple from her cheek ... such a temptress, even while washing dishes. Such light and warmth and sweetness
She reaches up to tuck a strand of brown sugar hair behind her ear and Alex's tongue burns to follow the trail of suds sliding down her arm. Instead he feasts his eyes, drinking her in to fill every pore, every cell, imprint her on his memory for ever, for always.
Alex wrenches himself away. He bites his lip, drawing blood he can ill spare, holding the howl of loneliness at bay. He flees into the dark beneath the frosty pinpricks of the impervious stars--oh, to change their course and in doing so, alter his destiny.
The mists rise from where they lurk on the periphery of things: between the leaves, below the eaves, clinging to the underneath of power lines. Alex pulls the tatters together to cover his flight.
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