–for Patrick 
 
At the deep kitchen sink, I blow a handful of iridescent foam 
across morning’s uncharted kitchen to watch it sail 
like a lit cloud through sunlight, to see it pillow 
golden as raclette dripping garlicky and fine from seeded rye 
toasted caramel over open flame, to watch it wisp linen-white 
and clean as an egret through cool air at sunrise,  
to willow gently as a dancer’s tulle in the first lemony quiet of day.  
Oh, we have missed this, I think—missed knowing 
that liquids can be anything, anything, while in flight;  
missed knowing that desire is solid, liquid, and gas 
all at once, shifting from amber to nectarine and back to oxygen. 
Oh, my love, the heart is not a scientist, but a container 
meant to leak a little, a jar of honey on its side, a slow streaming out;  
once freed from the glass ribs of logic, its contrails supping us this 
fleeting, sticky mouthful of sweetness where we lie together 
in the fragrant shade of wild pinyons and clementines.