! ! To A Summer Night (Sonnet 94) Poem by Lorenzo Costigliolo

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's night,
thy passion hottest, blossoms in full bloom?
Like August heat, no sun compares thy light,
too soon long nights return to certain doom.

Thine ebon flesh hath seen too much the sun
that pales before the beauty of thy skin -
thy shield, thy velvet sheen, that glows as one
possessed in thought of thee in mortal sin.

Sparked by thy gentle touch, thy golden palm,
which held my willing one, a moment, long,
awaiting past the storm, two sweating, calm,
life's sweet refrain from us, two lovers' song.

Though this lives on in verse and vacant dreams,
the fantasies suffice, for life, it seems.