Silkthread
 
These cloud formations are a loafer's paradise.
In them hangs a glittering, soundless,
white and silver glider, smaller than my thumbnail
 
which seems lovelier to me than the new red kale
or the loveroot, about which Whitman wrote
and whose flowers abide the summer.
 
The soft thwacking of flipflopped feet loosen
nostalgia's seine, and I wonder if
they are vinyl, polyurethane, recycled rubber...
 
...It is my daughter, rare visitor, with her dog
Cadmus, the dog she has had since November
and cannot now imagine life without, whose soft yellow
 
fur is impervious to the heat. He has a golden
smell, like cut grass steeped in the afternoon
and my daughter's apricot perfume.
 
When I say Cadmus, make friends, she tells me
he does. Cadmus gives me his paw.
 
Judy Swann

If you have any comments on this poem, Judy Swann would be pleased to hear from you.