Skinny Dip

heat vines rise from your folds
like damp ghosts,
lick my hair and skin, like the steam
that rises from a street grill in the sleet

in the summer, stews of
new plastic and riesling.
in the winter, wet
locker shorts and damp retriever.

your salad-plate surface seldom winks,
horizon clarity marred only by kitchen froth,
stilness challenged only
by kamikaze blossoms

your musty iron pearls
perch on my lower lip,
and drip saltily into
the drier cracks.

the Gregorian growl beneath
your constant, churning eruptions
is my belly's three a.m. plea
after a comatose fast.