Jigsaw Sky

Ripe
Elastic
On the pavement,
Soon to be sprayed down.

He stands sideways in his trench coat
Distorted in the horizon
Looking in a peculiar way, upward
And in a moment, onward calling
In the direction of a gravel walk.

A red smoke stack pipe rises
Out of a jigsaw sky.

Abstraction, soon to diminish
As words most often are, between desires.
Defining a sentence of a few weeks
And expressing himself in disgust
To the world, to a puff of smoke.

As quiet as the cancer itself.

© 1981 Sonja J. Phinney