The Wind

(Loneliness can make such strange bedfellows.)

Tonight is one of the Power's perfect evenings.
Precious transience, such flawlessness.
She relishes it –
the warm air, the clear sky, and the soft breezes.
But at the appointed hour, she dutifully exchanges
her lounge on the deck
for the bed in her room.

The temperature exquisite.
No need for air conditioner,
or fan,
or clothing.

She lies on her side.
Small tufts of air circulate.
One breeze ruffles long, dark hair,
swept across the pillow in streams of silky sheen.
Seemingly in response, another tickles her toes,
bare in the warmth of the summer’s eve.

Feather-soft, the upper air touches her cheek
as if to sculpt the hollow there,
then follows the contour from behind her ear,
down the outline of her jaw.
Hints of caresses stroke across her chin,
her nose,
and the small, gentle smile of her lips.

A brief respite.
No contact.
Then a playful puff returns to circle one foot,
barely grazing the other.
Skimming her ankle, like a satin cloth,
it slides upwards slowly.
First it glides up the curve of her calf
then around the rise of her knee.

Higher it eddies,
Then disappears,
a sensation by its very absence.

A stronger gust reasserts itself,
surging against her thigh.
Heavier, the soft roughness of velvet,
it tumbles over the top of her thigh,
lingering around the swells,
up onto her back.

Bubbling up her spine,
it spreads over her back,
across her shoulder blades.

Provoked beyond stillness,
she rolls onto her back.
One hand above her, the other underneath her thigh,
bent and open.
The matching leg lies straight, relaxed.

A whispering whiff traces her collarbone
from one shoulder to the other.
Back and forth it grazes,
rising and descending,
flowing and reversing,
until the encircling swirls cause her nipples to stir and stiffen.

Ever inconstant, the current withdraws.
Nothing moves,
but her breath anticipates.

Slowly,
almost imperceptibly,
tiny rivulets of air reveal themselves.
Caressing her breasts and gaining in strength,
waves rush across her belly,
swooping below her waist,
embracing her hips.
Tenderly,
tantalizing trickles of touch gently taste and trifle.

Too abruptly, the wind disappears.
Not one inhalation sighs
to make movement a song.
No calling to the vagaries of nature brings it back.

No partner at all,
this wind,
be it breeze or blast.
But merely the nonconscious insinuation of movement,
destined only to tease and to tempt.