Cheshire Cloud

The cloud bats the Cheshire eye at the sheltering moon

before the shadow overcomes its gaze and steals away

into your bedroom window. It slides along the cornice,

kissing the ceiling with mincing moans, wondering where

you have gone. The empty shell of the room greets

the shadow with winsome exhaustion, tired 

from waiting, from waiting, from waiting

until all the loveliness of the sun-dried sheets

faded into stale dust mites. The shadow gathers

itself into a well-wrung cloud and seeps

out the window into the Cheshire smile

that blinds it with the darkening moon.

Sightless, it stretches thin until the finality

of the transparency of the rising sun.