tongues like warm ice

softie poem

oily weeks ripple, heat on the highway,
everything is gorgeous if you really want
yesterday, swinging spiders by their threads 
while choice braids fate,
no third strand, 
you look like somewhen I’ve been before,
or years from now,

these days—
a handful of rocks thrown in the lake,
ripples merge,
but I’m only used to fragments,
and these afternoons slide
off the tongue like warm ice,
curls comforting our necks,
arpeggios ring from tree to tree,
I actually think I like it here,

there’s no end that can’t find a beginning
and then and then and then,
beads all rimmed with a soft abyss,
don’t tell me what time it is,

let’s watch buffets of milky light
ripple the moon water swirling
like the middle of my middle,
picking up dropped ropes from childhood,
tying the ends around our waists,
play.