Love Poems and Others/Lightning

​LIGHTNING

I felt the lurch and halt of her heart  Next my breast, where my own heart was beating;And I laughed to feel it plunge and bound,And strange in my blood-swept ears was the sound  Of the words I kept repeating,Repeating with tightened arms, and the hot blood’s blindfold art.
Her breath flew warm against my neck,  Warm as a flame in the close night air;And the sense of her clinging flesh was sweetWhere her arms and my neck’s blood-surge could meet.  Holding her thus, did I careThat the black night hid her from me, blotted out every speck?
I leaned me forward to find her lips,  And claim her utterly in a kiss,When the lightning flew across her face,And I saw her for the flaring space  Of a second, afraid of the clipsOf my arms, inert with dread, wilted in fear of my kiss.
A moment, like a wavering spark,  Her face lay there before my breast,Pale love lost in a snow of fear,And guarded by a glittering tear,  And lips apart with dumb cries;A moment, and she was taken again in the merciful dark.
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I heard the thunder, and felt the rain,  And my arms fell loose, and I was dumb.Almost I hated her, she was so good,Hated myself, and the place, and my blood,  Which burned with rage, as I bade her comeHome, away home, ere the lightning floated forth again.

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