Love me like a hot bath

Love me like a hot bath, soak right through to the warm marrow of my bones.
like the steady sway of a hammock on a do-nothing summer day.
like a surge of snowmelt and spring rain that floods a feckless vernal stream.
Love me like a grizzly mama and a Golden pup.
like a soft leather glove, stretched and worn to accept a familiar hand.
like a book with all the answers, laid out plain and true, to all the questions that ever really mattered.
Love me like that one magical feather, that lucky penny, that secret wish you’ve held too tightly, too long.
Love me like it’s possible,
and jump.


— By Kim Walters, Feb. 2022