swimming

feet get cold,
sitting in this rain-speckled shelter
with slippers on,
but they warm up to the idea of
skipping in puddles
with you. we would wear the streets
like socks,
and glide like new-born swans
across ice,
unsteady, but brave for having never tasted
the heat of falling.

that is the way we should be, certain
of nothing but the truth of the other,
ears filled with clouds, incapable
of hearing anything but the heave and
splatter (pitter patter) of beating hearts.

in a split -
of lightning i shut my eyes and capture
us
tentative like a bottled model ship,
soul set to sail.
i see us delightfully trapped in a pensive prism of glass,
of reflective rain
and cold glances, protected by time,
within the confines
of my delicate mind our lips will meet this -
second

we freeze into glossy sculptures,
encased in a static glow with rain lost in
our hair, filtering through gaps in our kiss, clasping
our shoulders steady and creeping between
our toes, gluing our feet to the ground...

unwilling to slip out of this stance, this
pretense, the last chance to feel something
heavier and harder than the sky tumbling down,

i kick
my shoes off,
lungs
filled with the slippery
fish
of a thought that
maybe
time would be kind and
stop,
so we could finally go
swimming.