Mind Wandering

by A.M. Broadous

March 2019

It’s a risk, but I’ll choose banality.

I’ll lie on a hill and watch the creamy

clouds stream along through filtered

periwinkle. Of the free shapes will be

these – armadillos, soft horses, potato

chips, and snapdragons. Misshapen

phalluses and Fu Manchu. I have little

to do with these, but I’ll let them pass.

And I’ll wonder how you managed

to slip through, too, for one cumulus

will have your eyes, your chin and hair,

your unfettered desire to float and keep

floating still, till what remains of me is

the mist of memory in your sight. So I’ll

grab two fistfuls of earth, stir my limbs

to a handstand, and rattle this world a little.

I’ll bring down the sky and everything

with it like loose pocket change. You’ll fall

to my orbit, and I’ll press you to my lips –

my lost dime, shiny and found.