Cloud

Sandra Cisneros

Before you became a cloud, you were an ocean, roiled and

murmuring like a mouth.

 You were the shadows of a cloud cross-

ing over a field of tulips.

 You were the tears of a man who cried

into a plaid handkerchief.

 You were the sky without a hat.

 Your

heart puffed and flowered like sheets drying on a line.

And when you were a tree, you listened to the trees and the tree

things trees told you.

 You were the wind in the wheels of a red

bicycle.

 You were the spidery Mariatattooed on the hairless arm

of a boy in dowtown Houston.

 You were the rain rolling off the

waxy leaves of a magnolia tree.

 A lock of straw-colored hair

wedged between the mottled pages of a Victor Hugo novel.

 A

crescent of soap.

 A spider the color of a fingernail.

 The black nets

beneath the sea of olive trees.

 A skein of blue wool.

 A tea saucer

wrapped in newspaper.

 An empty cracker tin.

 A bowl of blueber-

ries in heavy cream.

 White wine in a green-stemmed glass.

And when you opened your wings to wind, across the punched-

tin sky above a prison courtyard, those condemned to death and

those condemned to life watched how smooth and sweet a white

cloud glides.