A wending freshet catches turns across the dry bed A gaping movement denied closure Mouths spawn and speed the plain and, in a bar Legions away from the magnificent terrors of the African continent She addresses her own savage flush, her speech slurred And going south in lubricious tides Something about rainy days and carnal visits From people she's recently dreamt of- men and women, she says Conspiring toward emphasis There are hints of a willed libertine, and inside that blithe geode she Registers for effect- secretly, inexorably- deep songs vie With the otherwise salubrious designs of shiatsu Even the smoke from her cigarette disdains to avoid her The ice in her drink melts quicker than everyone else's The histrionics of troubled sleep have crept to the loins Like a starved black panther, she says. Or better still Like a starved black panther loping across the dry river bed Where, waving her hand undulantly from the wrist, she sees Sheets of heat and furrows of torpor See, when the moment's just right, she can spot its ribs chafing its coat And that's when she comes