Ye Lai Xiang 夜来香 (As Night Falls Comes Sweet Fragrance)

Night waits...
as Day staggers weary, trips
drips westward, burnt orange trapped
wrapped in gossamer lavender stole
steel against sudden rising chill
the spill of dusky dew, as tears
unchecked, deck wild mountain grass
for the pass of faded rays that herald
her jaded recline in slaughtered slumber

You wait...
Mute crouching tiger in yielding yellow bamboo
wielding deadly weaponry in your wild
impatient caress of pearl white porcelain
stirring scented jasmine, steaming
hot mists, gleaming ghosts in the gloaming
harkening, in the haunting of burgeoning black
to the crick-crack of sticks on stone
the tell tale lone footfall of love's twilight ambush

I wait...
Careful, carefree clad, murderous in midnight magic
siren sweeting in silken folds hidden, till unbidden
tumble from my kurta, skirt a-swishing heady incense
my incendiary intrigue to salve your ache as balm
to calm rumoured fevered humours
till under amorous arbour of twinkling, crystal
constellations, a thousand flowery stars explode
enfold us in a thunderburst of warm wet petals