A fresh breath gusts—
Through emerald-grey skies,
Cool on flushed skin,
A moan caught in the pines.

Light pierces thick clouds
Like want through restraint,
Veins of lightning stroking the dark,
Slow, then sudden.

Western redcedars tremble,
Heavy-limbed and dripping
Their mossy beards slick with longing,
Swaying like watchers in the hush.

Jubilee raindrops spill
From their high canopies—
A cyclone of sighs,
Convulsing in the sin of motion.

Our bodies—salt-slick, glistening—
Press and slide,
Skin to skin like rushing streams
Finding one another in the valley's fold.

The firs quake; the hemlocks lean in.
Nature's hush breaks—
Pounding rain turns to drumming hail,
A crescendo of wet, writhing rhythm.

You arch, I yield.
We move like wind through branches—
Drenched, alive,
Wet carnations crushed beneath us.

The mist curls around our ankles,
A whispering witness.
And in this storm,
Even the trees watch us dance.