I discovered again today that clouds are real,
not in the sense that they exist,
but as the things they purport
to be

one, a dancer with her back arched so,
her breasts thrust forward,
her face turned starward,
as she travels the sky
the wind dissolves her such that
her chest sprouts legs, her features mutate, and for a moment
she is a minotaur till she is overcome by stretch and breeze
and disproportion, ultimately to fade away

another a trio of ducks, I name them before, after and ever-after,
singular as a fluffy ball, suddenly they are turned
looking and waddling the other way, mashed to become a large white rabbit
for a moment, until they too are gone

now there is nothing but sky, a straight-shot of blue
to where the atmosphere of the earth ends,
where all of the gases press on heaven,
like glaucoma on a cornea, the inside
push of air I blow into a balloon

I discovered again today that I perhaps am also real,
not in the sense that I exist,
but maybe as the thing
I purport to be

Chagall 2020