Under a Cerulean Sky

Under a Cerulean Sky
Your waxy face floats. It’s a waning moon
under a
cerulean
Californian sky. A headscarf the same hue,
tied
tight,
envelops your hairless skull, stripped by cancer.
Blues
blend
as if you are already in heaven. You want to be
alive,
bright
but a hidden canker riddles the brain, replaces
the grey
with voids,
eats a feast of synapses and neurones.
Your brain is dull, dying, gasping to find
broken
pathways
to memories through disconnected filaments.
The flow
has ceased,
our past desiccated. The veins under your
translucid
skin
are a map that form routes, traffic slowed.
“Do you remember,” I ask, “blackberrypicking
for jam?”
Your grey eyes flicker hedgerows, then vacant
gaze
drifts
yonder. I remember a dead crow on
the path,
alive
with squirming of white maggots easing
gorged
bodies
over a bone
and black feather
patchwork.

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