Trying to fix a corkscrew that exploded
when it popped from my hand, I am
distracted for a moment from the signs
of age that signal to me in the form of
spaces where there ought to be memories
and words where there ought to be
other words. Lying on the grass to shape
a narrative in the clouds, there was a time
my head seemed to be there, my thoughts
rose into the cumulus and were carried—
indeed, swaddled—smoothly from past
to future, from first horizon to night’s arch.
These clouds today have snow in mind
but cannot let go. I poke at them, press
them to fulfill the season, but they slip away.
When Stieglitz photographed the clouds,
he captured his emotions, equivalents. He
was young then and the sky could still
exhaust him. There is a highway going west
where more than not a radiant sun slivers
a portal in an amber sky. No one ever
believes it is God. It is one thread among
the many that will net the colors of a sunset
farther down the road. There time retreats
beneath one’s wheels, and the plot’s afoot.