Double Love II

Sweat slicked brow and beating drum,  
I'll be gone when morning comes.
I slither out of your bed and come up for air in hers.
She speaks to me, and I go sleepwalking through the storm,
passing a string of pearls cast high and hanging in the red-berried tree,
each white sphere cased in a delicate ice cocoon,
and snow collected in the crook of a branch,
like a lover nestled in the arms of her oldest friend
after a night they both comfortably refuse to regret.
Her hands, victims in the messy war against her art,
accidentally leave India ink tattoos where they hold me,
gentle and soft like rose petals pressed against my cheek.

She pours me out like a jar of sun-steeped tea.
Some days I wish you would drown me in it.