View From a Flyover State

by M.R. Smith

I watched twin clouds form from nothing like ink blots spreading,
genesis of exegesis on expansive deep blue stationary.

One became a reclining nude with gross exaggeration,
an elbow here and breast there, Picasso-like,

while the other became a fish more coelacanth than perch.
They expanded rapidly and shape-shifted pell-mell to gross mass.

The impression became a closing in,
as though they were rushing at me in my unearned leisure.

At some unknown signal, like beasts whistled home,
they dwindled, Dopplering away until they were gone,

the sky returned to its virgin state, flawless as an unwritten note.
Later, a distended contrail from an airliner drifted over me.

I wondered if the same cloud-lady traced a finger on her window,
her first-class seat comfortably deployed for a passage from Alaska,

unaware of the fish dry iced in the hold, bound for an expensive
table somewhere far east of the divide.