Melt

Leave the jersey with holes at the elbows,

cast off the slippers, the blankets and crumbs.

The ice cream truck plays the one song it knows.

The trees are dense with apricots and plums.

Our long winter of isolation ends.

The familiar jokes we tell each other

seem new after the months parted from friends.

Even the rain smells sweeter in summer.

Sunblock follows you, a coconut ghost -

the scent lingers gently in empty lifts.

Distant heat waves ripple along the coast.

Each day arrives with the promise of a gift.

Did we dream those swaddled nights, the coldness?

I melt into these ample days, boneless.