Mist

Mist swaddled the city throughout the wide-eyed day
veiling the dog-pack of streets in its thin lace.
Somewhere in the afternoon, with feigned intimacy, the sky
licked Sweeney’s face. He faltered and looked up,
one finger still embroiled in a bramble of figures,
to see his concrete world floating in the clouds.

Something in the muted tones, where colours of which he was unaware
ran from the wash overlay, surprised in him
a mongrel sense of grace, a respite snatched
from the baying approach of a hungry summer.
Whatever transfixed the moment unleashed
his peeled mortality, pitched loose upon the world;
odyssey of a paper boat where gutters run
piss-yellow with the tears of an orphaned world.

June 92