Bluesky

It arrives for your birthday, without any gift.It has the face of a candle-flame,little flickering incisorschewing at the hem of a sleeve.A guest, you have no choice but to serve itboiled eggs for breakfast, pots of tea.Afternoons spent sketching in the garden,weeding the erratic zinnias.Night is what you come to fear.Pacing, muttering, unexplained thumpsas of books crashing to the floorin the empty room beneath the stairs.When the walls dissolve between dreamand waking there is nothingto do but open the door and stridebarefoot into a utopia of freshly fallen snow.