illumination

by Matthew Stokdyk

“Your daughter has become
quite the Bohemian, and I
would like to be Bohemian, also,
with her.”

She really could
draw, and color the smoke
(she always drew people smoking)
just right in a rainbow—
she asked me (as if I were an artist)
to write her a poem to draw on,
just a one-off forgotten forever like Blake,
but I couldn’t do it.

“That’s not really how I work—”

“Then figure it out.”

And I tried, and worked for many months
crafting the perfect little verse
for her to scribble over, but by then
she had deleted her Messenger again.
So I printed it off and
tried to make it pretty, tried to
make up with colors
what wasn’t in the words.
But I can’t draw.
So I burned it, out on the frozen lake.
And the smoke was white
against the white snow and
black sky bleached of stars by the city lights—
maybe I missed the rainbow, as it burned.
But really I don’t think my hand
could ever make smoke like her.