Tarnished

Tarnished

Mother sat peacefully on the porch,
looking young and pretty in her pale blue apron.
Her auburn curls tied back to keep her neck cool,
her foot tapping to the beat of the transistor radio
and the whir of our twenty year old fridge

She told me that clouds are lined with silver
the day we laid in the grass watching white pirate ships float.
The wind came and carried them away.

I’ve only found linings of charcoal, or some vicious
purple, like the blackberries we ate in Elysium.
you licking the dark juice from my rounded fingertips,
I sat wondering if life had anything more perfect to offer.
The wind came and carried you away.

Your voice, smooth as honey, flows into my head at night,
and we sway to the sound of silence, the two of us
on a balcony under the starry summer sky. Silver, then.
But when dawn’s pink fingers pry through my curtains,
I open my eyes to the tremendous distance that remains

between us— back to black.
I lounge with mother, breathing in the thick southern air,
sipping sweet tea and trying to polish the soot off these clouds.