Glass

That sky was a distorting mirror,
reflecting back your likeness. "That,
you said, "that is how things are
     beyond elsewhere."

On days when you felt an easiness,
your weightless smile ascended to that
firmament overhead. You muttered,
     "Cerulean."

On some days, all you saw was the
impressionist contusion of your
impending cloudburst, "injuring
     the sky," you said.

So when you asked me what the weather
would be that day, I told you, "Look 
with that dark eye of yours; look up
     towards the sky."

You took the obsidian glass
from that distempered eye and skimmed it
across the level surface of 
     an anvil cloud.

That whole sky shivered into giant,
falling, grey shards. And afterwards,
when the rains came, they washed away
each bruise, and let you see the sky.

(Banoffee pie-dels-asp viper, 6th/7th August)

Elsewhere and Afterwards.