Cloud Machine

Cloud Machine

I am a worker in a factory.
The gears rotate, soft steel
clicking into place and twisting out clouds
high above the ferns.

I wish I could lay down in them;
fill their painted leaves with my vibrancy,
with the realism that echoes off the walls of my mind;
and let a miracle grow.

Whether my mind is caught
in these wide wet clouds
or like an imaginary window cling,
colorful clothes splayed like kitchen rags
and my back suction cupped
amidst the growth of the earth;
green fronds in the forefront of white accumulus.

I have no knowledge of green.
My hands are rough from the slow
cold turn of a cloud machine.



This is a version I'm satisfied with. It may go through several more incarnations, but this will do for now.