On Returning Home From The Botanical Gardens

We have spent the afternoon
either queuing for tickets
or later, inside, curling at the edges
fagged and ragged in the humidity
as we oozed through continents.

But still, our mood was as light
as the butterflies that skittered through
the heavy air. We watched them pause
on puzzled heads like brief
visitations of grace.

Though none came our way,
we felt ourselves equally blessed
among the bowed and dripping fronds,
as we swayed in that half submerged,
half gasping world .

I stood there thinking,
as a new, liquid skin was forming
to coat my old one, how I could
sweat a poem from this.

But now I wallow,
feet planted on the bathtub rim,
blissfully tired and careless of metaphors,
drifting out on the ebb-tide
of the end of a perfect day.