Session Five Anthology

MENTOR: Julian Randall

A Stroll (Through Prospect Park)

The wisp of a cloud floats
Catch it with the corner of the eye
The way we do when we are shy
In front of someone beautiful

“Yeah, I’m going to the baby shower next week,
Is this a good gift?”

A breeze picks up
Lifts my hair off my shoulders
Wedding trail gliding.
It’s a Sunday

“I did hear about that!
What an amazing idea, this app…”

And the grass is buzzing with flesh,
Hearts pumping, pumping,
Drumming, drumming
Almost audible amidst this mortality

“No, girls, you have to learn to share,
She has the helmet so she’ll go first”

The kids are testing life’s waters
Dipping their toes
On skateboards, on baseball bats, on bouncing balls
On a hill that rolls so gently
Some belly of a mother pregnant with summer

“Fetch Micah!”

And picnic blankets spatter
A yet-to-be-formed quilt
Stitched with fresh green

“You’ve got cake on your nose,
No here!”

The clouds
They are morphing
Invisible force dancing
Their curves folding into another

“That’s delicious,
what did you put in there?”

Again, the diaphanous cloud returns to the corner of my eye
It stays there
I wonder if it is the same now

“Right and as an artist,
He uses this as a new medium, which is genius honestly”

This life
Changing
Still

"But I don't want to go home now!
She's staying!"

And the cloud begins to dance once more

~

Vanessa Meng