Give me your clouds
Your big clouds rising like cakes in the oven
Blue clouds heavy-bottomed, looming
High clouds scratched by wind
Clouds like a sun-bleached spine

I want white clouds billowing up
with a narrow sword-gray cloud
ripping through the middle
Clouds like cotton batting
Clouds like quilts
Wet clouds pulled apart by wind

I want steely clouds, pink clouds,
purple and apricot clouds
Clouds trooping like sheep
across a cool blue April sky
a puffy stray one
left behind by the herd
moving slowly away from the horizon

And I want shy clouds, too
Thin, modest clouds shaped
like a smile its wearer doesn’t know is there
Little eyelash clouds
Clouds like silk cocoons
Sheer slips of clouds wisping across
a dragon’s eye moon.


From Moraine (Pearl Editions, 2017).
Used here with permission.