Love Has a Southern Flavor

Love has a Southern flavor: honeydew,

ripe cantaloupe, the honeysuckle’s spout

we tilt to basking faces to breathe out

the ordinary, and inhale perfume ...

 

Love’s Dixieland-rambunctious: tangled vines,

wild clematis, the gold-brocaded leaves

that will not keep their order in the trees,

unmentionables that peek from dancing lines ...

 

Love cannot be contained, like Southern nights:

the constellations’ dying mysteries,

the fireflies that hum to light, each tree’s

resplendent autumn cape, a genteel sight ...

 

Love also is as wild, as sprawling-sweet,

as decadent as the wet leaves at our feet.

 

Published by The Lyric, Contemporary Sonnet, The Eclectic Muse, Better Than Starbucks, The Chained Muse, Setu (India), Victorian Violet Press and Trinacria