Caged-in clouds, gray and grey sheets and glaciers above
they don’t roll with inertia here, they slide
a necessary function of what supposedly makes a day
piercing sunlight a gift i almost forgot about
sight impeded, majestically
once, an old grouch recounted to me of the sunrises
the ones that caught them down south, a stone’s throw from that imaginary line we had made
how the rays would greet them, the violet turning the house’s lemon walls into butterscotch
lucky joy, lucky soul! to bear witness to beauty as such
before his smile fully formed that morning he’d remember how
his mother, too, had once enjoyed those colors, the morning’s warmth
but he couldn’t tell her anymore,
and what started out as alegría soured
into a settling, diving melancholy that seeped into his heart’s walls
what was a they was now just a he
in that island, everything was close, my own feet were enough
the stars still gaze down, i know only of where to look for the belt
enough to remind me they would see it later that night
trees sheltered my view, buildings enclosed it, spires guarded it
when i was sent south, the largesse of the sky tore off my skin, the dew in the air swallowed me
a thousand clouds and there was more blue than i’d seen in 354 days and 326 nights
a city of highway strips, any run-off would take the rest of our bodies
familiar as they were, those furls of floating seafoam loomed larger than i remembered
the massive white behemoths in the sky rampaged and ravaged
those cyan plains, endless enthralling motion
whatever was left of our exposed selves the sun took
hurling and boiling us on that suburban sand
and where i lay my eyes, leagues away, white lines on the street
here the gray skies are the ground
and the heavens i thought i’d had a lifetime to know
came thundering over me, uncovered by sheets, soul displayed