Other Poeple’s Poetry

 
When Clouds Will Be Clouds

 
by Dawna Rae Hicks

 
Cricket heat morning, all elbows and
the whites of our eyes
sharpened sun braising the walls through the blinds;
a mirror tipped up to the sky, welcoming
anything that might come down. It just has to be
something. For now you are enough to stop me
from stepping in, through, and climbing into the sky.

I remember the first time I saw myself
and nothing’s changed. What a trick
to put us in these awkward gizmos.
I’m not even in the room behind my eyes.
a jangle of ashtrays and carkeys beside a bed are almost lovers,
or lovers that have forgotten each other’s names.
That’s how it begins.
Unrelated, a correlation is drawn. A finger in the air.
This, and this. Bound. From there on in,
a slow or speedy severing, a diametrical fleeing,
a driving away, key secure in the ignition.

I’ve told you almost everything you need to know.
Every sprinter secretly yearns for
the Achilles to be pulled so tightly
they are hobbled. Or better, broken, brought down forever.
We wait for a puff of smoke, or
a cloud that looks like something else so completely,
miraculously and finally,
we can lay down in the grass and know we’re finished.
This meatsuit doesn’t need to run anymore.
We just need to look up from here on in.

You say it does not have to be that way:
you call it love because it is a good reason
to start letting days go by
without secretly lifting a corner of the blue world
and begging to be let out.

You tell me I will forget about how things tied
come apart, sooner or later. That I will
lay down in the grass
not broken, just resting.
Your arm across me will someday have been there
enough times to know better.
And clouds will be clouds.
You tell me I will even forget
to slip into mirrors, I will forget
where to wedge my fingers in the sky
because it is here right now,
all around us and always

 
 
Dawna Rae Hicks is a native to Scarberia, and still ducks when she hears a car backfire. She has been out of the writing circuit for some time due to impatience and being a single mom. She lives in Oshawa now and is an insurance broker. A long time ago she was published in about three anthologies but that’s neither here nor there. She believes that sometimes, life itself is enough and doesn’t need translation, but there are rare moments that require it.