Late walk

Calmer now and grateful
to have finally jostled through
the shouldering loud herds
of Friday night barhoppers
I take a quiet side street
swim thick translucent
summer air
inhale briefly the complex
charged heat
of a passing woman's
perfume and perspiration
trailing behind her
like a dark lace veil
floating almost visible
in the night
warmth wrapping
around me a moment
like the memory of an old flame
sudden, sweet, sharp
then gone,
fading with the clicking echoes
of her hard heels behind me
down the concrete sidewalk
and I breathe in again
the quiet midnight smell
of the churchyard lawn
beneath blue-white
streetlights
and move toward home.