Listening to Return To Forever’s “Romantic Warrior” with Susana in an Empty Room of my Recently Rented Echo Park Apartment

Her eyes closed, lashes spread like spider’s legs,

her hands beneath her head like pillows.

The soft down of hair on her arms

glistened with the light from the windows without curtains.

Her legs lay on their side, hips like a fertile hill,

wrapped in a work suit, nylons rubbed thigh to thigh.

My eyes swam over swirl of body

while the music unfurled around us;

it pulled me to that face, a pulse at her temple.

Each instrument a conversation:

Cello bass moan,

guitar fury,

and piano keys playing like children in a park.

Every phrase and notation,

reviving,

spinning,

calculating

the spiral of emotions

churning the sea of blood within me.