good morning darling
so cozy in the kitchen at breakfast

outside - gloom
& rain that audibly patters through the walls

tiny daffodils open on the sill

while on the other side of the glass

shimmering droplets clothe a crabapple form
poised & diminutive as a Degas sculpture in wood

in the next room
the pellet stove
chugs merrily



in this one I give
mushrooms for an omelet
a stir



I think of you, so far away from me
yet at the same time
as ever, deep inside

dozens of kisses, all over, darling
glistening droplets coming down gently, adhering
slipping wetly down the trunk, sopping, flooding
covering eventually, with steady audible smacks
drips and trickles, satin ribbons streaming
every exquisite portion of your bronze, tinted frame

yours, Scheherazade

***
image:
Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917), The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, cast in 1922 from a mixed-media sculpture modeled ca. 1879–80; bronze, partly tinted, with cotton skirt and satin hair ribbon, on a wooden base; H. 41 1/4 in. (104.8 cm), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York