Clouds (Boulder 1988)

West End…watching the clouds…watching the waitress move superbly through space. She
doesn’t want to see the clouds change…wants the whole plan to change…frame of reference to change. But just look at the white and grey clouds…sky you could swim in…
float in blue air…white pure thunderheads east of the Flatirons…silhouetted in blue. She has her own clouds she goes in and out of. Smoke floats up and disappears into blue. All variables disappear into clear air. Footsteps slowly fading away…love fading into dream…
dream fading into morning light, birdsong, cigarette and coffee. Staggering again into being.
Pieces come together slowly as day begins to appear. Moving forward slowly, stiff with old dreams, into the mounting air. Things to do…I say: “I quit!” but it does no good. Events happen one after another like flaming boxcars down an endless rail. Falling in love with each moment’s inhabitants…too much of a too much thing…like fast food clouds of verisimilitude. Time to spill my ginger ale,…go to the Trident…small interlude of words is there. It’s the thin night air that does it…like her lips silhouetted against the screen door as she turns for the last time, for the last look that she will remember with her new lover, as the white clouds finally go out…as the last light fades…as the mind fades and goes out… into the night sky.