For a friend

 

Out of the two-story house, a parking lot away

from a wooded alcove, she wonders about the smoothness

of my nose and the yogurt-swirl

sky above us.

 

The cumulonimbus clouds had retreated,

while orange-pink cracked through God’s smoke-filled respiration.

She threaded her fingers through mine and asked

why my eyes were always tilted upward.

 

I don’t know, it’s always pretty scary when I look down,

I said, as the humidity lightened.

 

The asphalt called out to her,

but she wasn’t always eager to respond.

 

Her hair fell soft and dark on the fingertips of my free hand.

A tuft softly parted over one eyebrow, wiggling against

the day’s wind, radiated against the dying

sky above us.

 

Swings gently rocked, as if ghosts of the day’s children

romped among us. Her movements were light

and sharp as she broke free of my hand

and climbed onto the swing.

 

I watched, far from reach, as she glided through space,

the wind shaping the contours of her dress.

 

The tuft of hair bounced in and out of place

in sync with the graceful symmetry of her semicircular motion.

 

I smiled, a toothless smile, to myself, though she caught it.

Remembering the time, I beckoned her to come back,

to watch her step, to find our shoes, but her eyes were on the

sky above us.