With a big simile

she wrote he warped his arms around me

      and tickled me. Soon all I liked was not

            a hymn's "I know inflection,

                  guilt perfection, or some

                        hissing blessing, but errors.

                              Airs. Apparent selves

                        of steam. When large birds fooled

                  through blowing firs, the white

            gulls vanished into greens

and came back clouds. Black crowds

            of crows. They lit where taillights

                 stared at their red ice. Then flew

                        where now a sharp arc goes weathering

                              across the whole blue psyche like ...

                                    a fighter's contrail. But

                              it doesn't disappear. Dove-white,

                        it widens. Whiles. Smiles.

                              And still it's there. Sky-sized

                                    it's warped to one vast quill

                                          feathering.

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Copyright © 2011 Muriel Nelson All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission