Frozen doorknobs won't turn; they're locked
from within the past. Memories hang
like paper moons, from sagging, sullen skies,
painted too long ago by those ever-optimistic child-hands.
The prospect of an endless cloak of indigo found its frontier,
even before the sun rose; I felt its cool calm slipping away,
too soon into the gray far away.
But you are the life in my breath, and I would trade
a thousand moons or more for the incandescent promise
gleaming in your limpid blue eyes.
Lucky you found me, before I became one of the clouds....
Though I may always chase storms, I'll never leave the ground.
Now, my paper moons live like finished books—
beloved enough for the shelf, but too much a part of the past
to be reread—and so they garner dust, like trophies.
And I no longer chill my hand
reaching for yesterday.
© Kerri Jenkins, July 24, 2003
