Along the River’s Park (poem)

Along the River’s Park by Jeremy Drahos

This night’s air was worn like a leather duster
Slumped over my back like a lifeless body
The humidity imbues every pore with suffocation
The sweat arising from each, already stifled, pore meets the thickness of this night’s ambient humidity like opposing armies enthralled in war
My flesh is the battlefield of two hydrogen atoms in tandem with one oxygen atom versus my secreted sodium & chloride; the outside versus the inside- the Universe’s melodramatic hyperbole
There is no victor nor victim here; there just is

The young lovers litter the swings, stools and seats
Such tight embraces; some more distant
Some cling, one to another, with such fervor, such tenacity; a mere sea of estrogen and testosterone interwoven by each other, for each other; as if to weave these threads to fashion some sort of fornicatory flag
Many couples strung together so tightly that the night’s thick air cannot even blow betwixt them
The heat of the night and the heat of passion; the humidity and the hormones
Lust-laden lips melded together with vigorous ferocity; such couples cannot be unglued
Denial-laden couples sit together, yet so far apart; such couples entertain a relationship with long-passed expiry
There is no victor nor victim here; there just is

The Moon smiles at the River as it rises it’s tide; the River gleams with the reflection of the Moon within itself
The Woman’s eyes gleam with the necessity of security, affection, admiration and loyalty
The Man’s eyes gleam with the necessity of admiration and a repository recipient of his semen
Nature shuns us all when we lack the ability to find the necessity of compromise within Her maelstrom
As the thick air taunts the flying flags of fertility, fornication, fantasy, friendship and favor
There is no victor nor victim here; there just is