It Matters to Me

It Matters to Me

What did the ice cube say
to the kitchen counter.
Let me slip into something
more comfortable.
We solids have it hardest,
don’t we, all crammed
up inside ourselves, content
and container. Where
does ice go once it becomes
water. Where does
the puddle go once it lifts
from itself, like smoke
leaving the flame. One day,
it will rain, and you
will wave, say, hello, puddle,
why, hello, ice cube,
I barely recognized you there.
And when the flood
you’ve come to love dries up,
you can think of it as
a piñata in rewind, butterscotch
discs and chocolate-
flavored chews and wax-papered
bubble gum retreating,
a startled flock, sucked up from
the floor back into
the sealed belly of the donkey.