At noon the blue of the desert sky 
seems close to infinite—
until the sudden appearance 
of a single, tiny cloud. 
Wispy, almost pulling apart, 
the minuscule puff of white 
is just as suddenly joined by a twin—
then both vanish as though a Grand Magus 
waved his wand, and they are now 
white rabbits somewhere else.
There’s the sense of a backstep, 
a change of heart—clouds 
that could have joined forces
and grown to block the sun, 
dissolved instead in midday glare, 
their reconnaissance undone 
by a superior force, the desiccating 
echo of solar winds pulling the tails 
behind comets hurtling past 
on their way to somewhere else. 

Bio: Cynthia Anderson