Dear warmth,

May you rub your back against my shoulder
‘til the windows mist with condensation,
and we fall back into youth, hiding
away from the older.

May your temperature, rising to the point
of red cheek puncture, provide an oasis
under the sand of duvet’s cover.

May your hair whip around like every
flame I’ve ever seen, no agenda or judgement,
just sheer ecstasy and  excitement.

May you conjure up that lone shower feeling,
that one where for a brief slot in time everything
you know and have become floats away through
that extractor fan, out into the air- climbing higher.

May you provide that gasp of heat that
hits the cook in the face, after opening the oven’s
gate in hunger and haste.

May you be that holiday sun I always seek.

May you be the metal womb of  a car when
outside in the myriad hospital world
where it’s cold.

May you be humorous and humid and
totally lovely to be with.

May you be a heated conversation and argument
and disagreement, that torment of words
I need to hear.

May you be my laugh that bubbles up
from the volcano underneath.

May you be the heat caused by key
and lock, that one that stops
others from coming in and making
for ruin.

May you be that first sip of  ‘the
most civilised thing in the world’, as
Hemmingway put it, and let it ignite
a dance below.

May you not judge the mixture
of my grape and grain, and my love
for walking in the rain and my waiting for
ex-girlfriends every time they call.

May you always let me bed down
in that manger in the snug, though
Steve doesn’t know I borrowed his
blanket rug.

May you forever toast that bread
at midnight, just before bed.

Yours faithfully,
The Cold.