By Ann E. Michael
Clouds Like Late Renaissance Heavens
Our yard was small yet I remember lying
on my back in grass and clover, listening
to bees, looking up at clouds in what seemed
to me the wide sky of southern New Jersey,
marveling at their myriad configurations,
telling myself stories, and at night after
my sister fell into the steady handpump
of a child’s sleep, I dreamed. To tell you this
makes me feel old, reminds me of how
the slide projector shone light through film
positives on the wall of my parents’ house.
In our pink room we read borrowed novels
if it rained or was winter time, or played
paper dolls, carefully trimming the tabs
of their costumes. I think about scouring our
corner lot for acorns and pinecones or
standing under the downspout in hot summer
deluges, my sundress stuck to me, sopping.
Today I lie on the grass, looking up at a sky
full of clouds that conjure late Renaissance
heavens, all billow and brawn, muscular,
involute, a pile-up of paint or water in one
of its shifting states. My father has died.
The sky’s populated with crystals and ashes
and I no longer remember my dreams
