SISYPHUS KIND

A.E. Shuff

It rained on my flight back to you.

we were hemmed in-

On all sides by dark clouds

Like a fort under siege 

And I thought of you 

We seemed to climb for ages 

A beast struggling under a burden 

Weighed down by its own guts 

An ox on a steep hill dragging a cart

A mile into the sky- 

Like a man in a fable trying to meet God

And I saw flashes of illumination on the clouds outside

Headlights or lightning or 

Will-o’-the-wisps just beyond-below

My plexiglass window 

Ghost-yellow blinks of morsecode 

We seemed to climb for ages 

In dark, in damp, in driving rain

But for a moment, the flashes stopped

And then we broke-

Like a snake cutting its teeth on an eggshell-

Above the clouds and into the starry sky 

And I thought of you 

And how you and this were much the same 

Nightsky after tempest 

Familiar and well-missed