A Climate of Temperatures
I feel my body warmth
still clinging to the glossy cloth
as I slip my nightgown off.
The Aztecs almost had it right.
Fire and ice at the whim of the sun.
If not worship or propitiation
at least a clamor of wonder,
as chaos and tenderness
press their insistence against
the skin. The water in my tub
offers comfort in a life
already ripe with breakfast for two.
Far away blood-red,
or neighbor-near, a cry, shrill
as a peacock’s, slides through the cracks,
through walls too thin to lend me
shelter. I step from the bath,
and wrap myself, watchful, alert
to the maneuvers of the sun.
| Peggy Aylsworth |
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