Sky

There are clouds in these poems,
not black, quick ones,
but easy, meandering clouds floating
round and pink like closed-eyed babies
ready for birth.

The sky is always there,
as constant as our own skin.
But how often do we look at it?
When it offers noisy brilliance of fireworks,
silent brushstrokes of rainbows,
when something other worldly moves across it,
when ripe with full red or white moon,
then we look.

What if today were our last time
to see the sky?
I wouldn't be sitting inside
reading poems about clouds and skies
I'll never see.
I would be outside, looking up, my eyes working
like dry mouths
drinking in all the free bits of heaven they can get
while there's still time.

I think I'll go out now, point my face
like a ready target at the sky,
beg it to aim a perfect, beatific display
right at me.

But I'll take this book with me.