His brother had a recipe for clouds,
but that was more a formula for magic
than for chemistry, a kind of tragic
folding of ingredients as shrouds
of cumuli advanced outside the lab,
above the kitchen where he couldn’t see
and wouldn’t have been able to decree
that all of heaven is a cake to grab
and carry in a shoebox to his room
where he could sleep on it and tell his friends
about the view, the colors from inside
as he gazed out from where the cloud line ends
or down into the bowl of murky gloom
he stirred, refrigerated, spooned and fried.
Advertisement
