Ontogenesis

I am cold, he said.
Then wear me as a cape, she replied.
And so he did, donning her,
Shortly afterwards complaining
He was being suffocated.
So, tossing her blithely aside
She became an unrequited requirement,
His casually catapulted Capulet caper.
There’s just no pleasing some people, thought she,
Spinning away through a curious accumulation . . .

Of Cloud.

Moving on, she fashioned herself
Into a wide-brimmed hat for a jobbing actor
Who needed something jaunty
And thought her just the ticket
For his Romeo method . . . of dramaturgy.
All too soon swoons passed, however,
And he proclaimed she’d weighed him down,
Was twisting his melon, man.
So away he threw her spirit blithely,
Like a frisbee, into the lampblack night . . .

Of Cloud.

In time she found herself wrapped as a bib,
Tied around the neck of yet another:
A starving ornate articulate artist
Suffering dreadfully from a disorderly OCD.
The hot, thin broth he messily slurped
Burned her bare back terribly
Yet all he could note was annoyance
At his soup–soiled surrogate smock.
She, tender of heart (and love-struck-low on marbles),
Cared only for his poor, ego-ridden soul: a fabrication . . .

Of Cloud.

She inevitably, within a span of one week
Once again was deemed befouled baggage.
I cannot bear how messy you are! He cried,
Crumpling her into a debased ball, disgusted,
Unceremoniously depositing her,
Arms and legs akimbo, deep into a charity bag
To be left forlorn and broken of heart,
Rebutted and off-footed in the gutter
Whereupon she considered her plight
Into a cheerless night . . .

Of Cloud.

Then one fine day something changed . . .
Having awoken in a skip,
Blinking into beams of a majestic sun,
With tentative fingers she felt the sum of her being
Reveal itself, slowly unfurling
As a thousand cast-offs
Shifted shape into some rough semblance of a human,
No longer something, but someone.
Unsure whom this new creature truly was yet sure she was
Of worth at last, she beamed broadly through a pacification . . .

Of Cloud.

In no time at all a passer-by stopped,
Stooped, held out their hand — a man on a mission
With manumission — and dusted her down,
Pinched her cheeks, polished her eyes all bright
And lo, below, he beheld that blinding worth
Which now illuminated all in her path.
He absorbed that refraction and reflected it back at her,
Displaying those monuments she might create,
Should create, must create; the creation of her true self:
Born of fire, of ends, of beginnings, of the supernal nature . . .

Of Cloud.

Examining this path she unfurled, uncurled and stretched,
Invoking a brand new augmentation — a shapely soul
Solely for herself: Horizons new, a Fata Morgana become truth.
And so bright was her visage,
Her luminescent rays of chromatic splendour,
That all who took in her ontogenesis
Were forced to don Ray-Bans and squint.
And the cape-less sighed, the hat-less held their breath,
And the bib-less cried at her radiant glory . . .
But mostly they cried . . . for themselves, a lachrymal rainfall . . .

Of Cloud.