All those things

The low slung moon breathes 
peppermints on you, 
while kissing our shoulders with a whisper of ice. 
The bloom of night grows slick and copsed with the burr of 
nestled birds sleeping, finally, 
but not you or I. 
The warm day swept aside 
for a sky as chilled as a glass of milk, 
you drop peppercorns of thought. 
We dissect the day, its highs and lows, 
that honeysuckle we smelled on the parade, looking 
out to sea with ruffled hair and 
glossy eyes. 
We talk about health and love 
and all those things 
that hold us close at nights like this, where 
summer starts to die, to shrivel up too soon, 
and there's nothing left to do but stand under the moon; 
a frosted mother who gives 
a sour glance this way and that 
but equally keeps us safe, us mortals, 
us singers of songs and writers of poems. 
The night is giving birth to sounds that we don't know, 
or care for, 
and a fox locks eyes with you and makes us think of home. 
Arm in arm we slip away from that druglike call 
of the glowing orb that gives us our tides. 
Home, now, where the foxes can't reach us, and the soothe 
of blankets 
breathes into us new life.