While the rain twitters in the cedar trees,
your bare toes squirm in the mud like
dancing worms. In the middle of the yard—
once covered in crabgrass, now encased
in waves of purple pansies—you reach up
with eyes shut, hoping to touch the darkening
sky—a cold, cottony container of gray
chrysanthemums overlooking your limitless
life. You want to evaporate into the sky,
stretch like a sunray onto the slick aviary
of a billion nimbus clouds, where thunder
beats its wings against your airy feet like
a fortress of sparrows. You want to atomize
in the breeze, your consciousness a series of
sounds germinating the globe: your laughter
an echo in the caves of New Guinea, your
sobs a ripple in the rivers of Brazil, your
sighs a shudder in the trees of Madagascar.
You want to fly past the sun like a comet,
bathe in every silent, sparkling speck of
stardust on your journey to a new planet with
mud you can stand in, rain you can dream in.
When the drizzle ends, you walk back into
your house, the last wingbeat of spring trailing
behind you like a rare bird with an entire
universe in its eyes.
–
Jacob Butlett is a Pushcart Prize nominee with an A.A. in liberal arts and a B.A. in creative writing. Some of his work has been published in The MacGuffin, Panoply, Cacti Fur, Gone Lawn, Rabid Oak, Ghost City Review, Lunch Ticket, Fterota Logia, Into the Void, and plain china.