Cloudscape

When a cloud
becomes a ragdoll or a sheep,
the Madonna’s face, a sidelong
glance, rainmaker in April,
ice-truck in December,

it is forced to reconsider itself,
a theatre of strangers
with quiet footfalls and masks
that flicker like candles,
a foreign radiance
speaking in tongues.

All it knew,
or thought it knew,
was foolishness,
a circus with no clowns,
a bundle of immaculate secrets,
the whisper of moths’ wings
caught between a cabbage
and the sun.