Annette Sisson

Ode to Ephemera

                                                    ~ After For Once, Then, Something, by Robert Frost

In sleep I breathe two worlds, straddle

              time. Behind my eyes, shapes mutate

                            like Picasso at work:

profile, forehead, facets of a pink lip

              darkening to claret, a three-fingered

                            hand turned,

breast reversed, angled planes pivoting

              to the next, each seeming to ask

                            when? now?

Fog tremors the chilly sky, drifts

              from folds of earth. A solitary shrub

                            appears in mist,

arms of a tree, curving bands of thicket,

             roof tiles. My eyelids quiver

                            lapis flashes,

streaks of deep orchid ambers, pearls.

            Indelible.

                            Something.