The Shape of Steam

Part of a poetic dialogue with Aria: number three in response to this excellent one here.

Back to you, my friend.

---

The Shape of Steam

steam is smoke

who can hold the shape of smoke?

they cannot measure

its motion

the lazy moisture hangs

under the branches

and licks the leaves

or shoots upward, spinning

itself against itself

until the still attenuates

its grasp

--so the clouds

that press the cold into the ground

and the streetlights across the asphalt

and catch their glow, a little

is the running ghost of steam

gathered up in flight

from other fires

a vast and arching herd--

rushing and rustling

in the nearer fields of the sky

and I would silence

the porchlight--to hear them better

with my eyes

I would still the lamp

and climb the stairs in darkness

to hear their echo

on the edge of the window

I would stand in the chill

shoulders hunched

head drawn upward

what is the warmth, the fever

-bright sheen

of the glass

to this slow, glowing migration?

what is left of the fire:

these banked and rolling vistas

prove the spark

that strikes in the shadows