The mean temperature of water

is rising. Every hat cut is a hat passed
          for the warming. See:
butter slip from a hot scone. Lotto
          ticket bearer’s freeze-frame smile.
Man’s calligraphic morals pissed into snow.
          Once upon a time, so it’s said.
Heat transfers through the holy water whet
          of an infant’s silken forehead.
What sweats through militant
          antiperspirant. The intravenous drip
of your life for mine.
          In the Liffey, in the Tigris, Euphrates,
in the Rhine. And yes, in the poem,
          in how you read it (cold water
having no simile), getting warm, sleazily
          warmer the second time.