Any Moment
Unbound, like a child in summer land,
I walked from work at sunset
and happiness found herself in my chest.
She floated upward through my throat
and mouth and eyes.
We were humming along like sister clouds,
so I asked her, “Why now?”
Silence.
I thought I had jinxed the spell
but she stroked my hair.
She wouldn’t answer,
but drifted north again, into my brain,
into the dust of memory –
big and little fingers in licks of tide,
digging to save the castle;
another workday, long-good-done,
and evening ahead, honeyed with twilight;
rapids of snow-melt against canyon rock,
cerise and tangerine as if on fire.
I awakened on a mat of grass,
beside a tree that smelled like pine.
I swear I wasn’t dreaming
when happiness raised her eyebrows,
and evaporated back into sky.