Chicago stretched before our eyes
just little lights and tiny cars
drifting through the darkness.

An abandoned swing-set
next to that chocolate factory
somewhere downtown
where my lips met yours
for the very first time.

Lightning broke across the sky
as if God was hastily scrawling an autograph.
While the storm came inexorably forth
there was a fire in your eyes
that no deluge could douse,
and I loved you then
as I always had
ever since YOU
marched inexorably out of that little house
heels, hair, eyelashes, and strength
igniting my heart and stealing my breath.

I've never believed.
I mean truly believed.
Not even
when you and I
sat through Sunday school,
but I'll admit
that there are worse things
then the possibility
of getting to see you again.
I'll see you there
if I get to go

Some things exists on a plain apart.
Words seem clumsy and confounding
in trying to explain these things,
which further frustrates the heart
which understands them
without the need of pretension.
Her beauty was one such thing.

It danced like a flame
on the darkest day of the year
resplendent, triumphant, and yes
unconquered.

To be near her was to to be entranced.
Entranced by such a heat,
that you believed
that even the seasons let her be
as she moved in perpetual summer.

To be around her was to be different:
to be apart
like her beauty,
but to be changed,
yet you allowed it all the same
for the sadness was nothing
when placed side by side with the euphoria.

The sparks spilled from your eyes,
and I dabbed at your cheeks
with a paisley pocket square.

Your voice was so small
that I had to sit so close;
close enough to smell
your Chanel perfume,
hints of darkness
and complicated beauty.

I watched your eyes
so as not to be lost
in your smile.

It was nights like these:
where the summer chill swept off the lake,
and brought me to the low crackling fire
in the stone den,
competing tastes of
pond **** and pink champagne,
when I wondered
if her mind was more beautiful than her body.
When I'd contemplate the fire in her eyes
as they lit up
like an army of lightning bugs
in a desolate field at dusk
as a storm swept in,
I'd wonder at the friction moving her heart.

Lightning pulses in vague moonlight
as night fully settles over the open fields.

Armies of fire flies wage a silent war
popping and shining everywhere.

The scent of rain and dirt permeates all,
as the electric air seems to thicken.

The stars come out early in Indiana,
and it's easy
to not feel so alone.

Summer softly swept in,
and I could feel the sun even in dusk.

I welcomed the coming storm,
and imagined it's cool kiss on my burnt
body,
and I imagined you too;
your tanned skin, and those red red lips,
and in that moment,
with thunder providing a distant waltz
and lightning bugs whirling
I suddenly felt quite solitary.