Patches of Blue Sky

Patches of Blue Sky

"There! A patch of blue sky, let us chase it!"
-Sense and Sensibility

a thousand yesterdays
we try not to uncount
as our old sandcastles
have hardened into stony fortresses.
We fly flags that admit
now that we do not know.

The hard skies are tilting down
drowning the personal,
as a pendulum collides
against our insides.
I suffocated
a small dare in me
to meet those porch steps
rounded from small feet.

Escaping the tin lidded sky
I ran
away chasing the
second promise of blue
feeling copper eyes
on my back.

There was a peeled image
in my mind, yesterday...
you were wearing polka-dots,
I forgot my shoes.
We had chocolate smeared faces,
when we could scuffle easily across
those sidewalks

but now we allow
that same distance to garden
into unexplained miles
and clocks to strangle our minds.
Our thin-painted distractions
are enough, sometimes,
to mask any hint of rain.

we do not find these footsteps easy,
being creatures of salt,
we always look back.
We learned early
how to pretend
and build imaginary skyways.
to uncode secrets written on faces.

We keep our faces blank.
I start again to chase
whatever patch of blue
the instinctive sky
has to offer me.

Until I can reach it,
I will line below it steady
watching what is above
ready to catch the sky
in case it falls.