The sky is stale

The sky is stale, a boy said of the clouds.
We looked over the edge of sea.

But I can still see her white breath.
Look.

I had not seen blue clouds before.
Neither had the sea
who returned to the sky her blueness and her breath
in crests and pulses and I wondered of the time
I flew over the sea and could not see its movement,
only the coarse cobalt fiber it showed back to the sky and me.

The sky is musing, an old man said of the clouds.
We saw the clouds tumble over the edge of sea
out and in; breathing
in and out
onto the sea and into us.

But instant sense is not sense at all.
See?

Oh dear Miss Cardinal

Oh dear Miss Cardinal,
I so often miss your merit,
in flight with your suitor
red and regal
but I see it now in your feathers
all a-ruffle on the dirt floor,
a heap of rusty brown and russet,
bequeathed to the approaching brown-
pink panting tongue and
wet coal sniffing;

When I sit on the couch in sleep
and a brown-pink tongue
and wet coal sniffing
moisten my face I scream
“NO Toby NO”
but you rest in perfect harmony,
resigned to your fate,
your orange beak crunching
between gnashing teeth
and your feathers
arrayed so pleasantly and I say
“Oh dear Miss Cardinal,
I never knew you were so pretty.”