Bandaged Angel

Stretching my hands to the sun

In feathered footloose hope

My soul crushes resistance

My limbs woven free

From the unbridled wind

Eyes straining to glimpse the invisible

The time has come at last

Let them take off the bandages

No more stinging pain

Spread the world out on my palm

My body paddling salmon-like

Swimming up the sun-patched stream

Trapped once again

Stuck in glass elevators

Trying to remove the rag gauze mask

To glimpse the moon’s fog-blind disc

Or catch smiles in between tears on faces

To grasp runaway beams of the tangerine sun

Stretch… stretch my hands to the blushing star

Closing my eyes for a split second

My hopes locked in dandelion globes

With just enough spherical precision

To share soap bubbles with muted meteor pops

To share latex balloons of blue blue dreams

Free at last from lace-like bandages

To watch life’s splash of neon-cornflower

Paint spattered on dream-drenched grass

From ideas plastered on burnt chocolate cardboard

Seaweed-netted shadows under umbrellas

Or from the feverish urge to make a statement

Finally free just to take and savor

To freeze one high-flying moment in time

While waiting for speckled crystals

To dissolve solitary in my murky glass

Make one clumsy leap from doubt to certainty

One climb up a dappled peak

Amber sap collecting on snowflake roses

Dewdrops trickling on my twilight thoughts

In vain the lonesome seagulls

With ink-stained whitewashed wings

Wait like hoarse angels crying

For dream corks to rise from charcoal water

I long to be one of them

Or blend with sea diamond foam

To rainbow melt like ice

To become a downy blush cloud

A studded logo on a dust-printed suitcase

Or a child again building plastic castles

I want to hold the world

Sand-condensed milk

Dripping from my baby spoon

In between damp sticky fingers

To leave the world with yawning smiles

Sun-kissed murmurs of awkward goodbyes

My hands stretch to the sun

My soul collapsed in the crystal jacket

Of a thermometer reading fevered longing

Hanging between nothing and chocolate-candied bliss

Desperately yearning for that bandaged angel

Breathless from calling the world with a muted voice