THE LOVE OF LADIES WHO BURN...SCALD...AND SCORCH

Joni sings
in the shower
while I play
in the damp news
of yesterday.
Coffee bounces
up from sleepy beds
of conflict
& balm
as her moist skin
exudes fragrance
like rare orchids
in an overheated
hothouse...

I'll read
to Toni
tonight
her own words
from the mouth
of a white man
drunk
on her rhythms
of the heart's coal
& diamonds...

There's Simone,
both Nina & deBeauvoir,
pointing with acid tongues
new tastes in extremes
of language glued
to the affairs of men
doomed & tragic
and forever
joyful...

& Billie
of course
turning & twisting love
around her tongue
until, even I,
can hear it
for the first time
again
& again
& again...

And then
there is
you.
The one
who hums
inside,
constant,
a metronome
of want;
the blue tangle
of legs
& after sex smoke
from cigarettes
drifting lazily,
as gentle as wisps
drawn from Miles' Spanish horn;
who I whisper to
in the dark embers
of the night.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2017