A Poem For the Summer

So the tide goes in and out
dishes, laundry, and magazines washing up on the shore
and sometimes they wash out again

Imagine our little collection of rooms
many-frame captured
so we can watch the piles go up and down
books hopping
from couch to table to bed

to bed again we go
but not solely so we can get up in the morning

each night we dream the walls of our house bigger
dreaming so hard that they bulge and spread
until everyone we know and don't know is in our house
sharing the blankets
paisley, checked, striped,
plaid, and cartoon-covered

everything smells of skin warmed by being outside for too long
a slightly charred offering
a prayer for time to slow down a little
and let us dream a while longer
in our little collection of rooms