Amarillo Bay — Poetry

Dragonflies remind me of skin
sweltering, simmering summers
melting into pools of aquamarine
sliding into hazy afternoons spent
in bed, the wrinkles of the sheets
curve into the curves of me, my
spine wrinkled around the musty
spines of wrinkled books that
curve words into the crevices of
my mind, and evenings that smell
of jasmine and hum like the thrum
of cicadas and chirp like the whine
of crickets—primal calls calling out
to mates to mate and celebrate
the vitality of heat, hot, humid, heavy
air pulling down on leaves, drooping
wilting, withered, weary, worried, it
seems, till the taste of lightning
flashes on my tongue and lingers
light little laments of lost longings
and the skies open, drenching draining
dryness out of my skin, and the
dragonflies dance around my head,
a diadem of diaphanous dreams.