The Stream of an Airplane

Below the plane, cauliflower clouds and the lapse

where constellations of city light appear

Then the lemon of sun that turns white before baby blue fades

lovingly into indigo, cobalt, midnight

Going home with heart filled, what to remember but color

blotched and faded, orange now fuchsia pink a radiance like youth

unbuckled at the belt of sky where the flesh of earth radiates

into the wit of imagination, a borrowed home

The heave of spring against the volcano of winter

the gray turbulence stiff in the joints of memory

time blowing in and out of the window cracks

the faded fields where wheat dreams hunger

A hunger so wet it swims

Now an ocean of tumble clouds and the word "turtle"

a delicate tea cup placed in saucer, the word "turtle"

like teeth from plush lips arriving in a smile

hair astray and mountains in a young man's dreaming eyes