Smirking Dragon

As the sun settled into soft angles

just above igniting western skies,

 

it spotlights a cumulus cloud curiously

shaped like a coiled, smirking dragon

lazily floating eastbound, her neck and

 

grinning head preening north by northwest,

drawing your attention toward Orcas Island

 

and one of the most perfect moments of

your life, when you were inexplicably

comfortable in your own skin while both

 

alone and in unfamiliar company

at a destination wedding you attended

 

against your will, watching two outliers

pledge their lives to each other as you’d done

twice over, with the second time inexplicably

 

working out much better than the first,

which compelled you to make that journey

 

in the first place to that unfamiliar island

surrounded by unacquainted people

to witness an unfamiliar couple

 

pledge their lives to one another in a

series of moments the smirking dragon

 

reminds you that can only be described as perfect.

As the dragon cranes her neck northwestward,

it evaporates into the ether,

 

leaving only her fluffy scaly body and

a disembodied smirking head, which also

 

slowly vanished from misty existence

leaving you wondering why your second

attempt at sharing your world with a woman

 

worked wonders while your first effort failed

spectacularly, or why your second trip to

 

Orcas Island was fun, but not nearly as

magical as that first one, or why that beautiful

smiling couple of strangers beginning their lives

 

together ultimately could not fulfil

their pledge to one another even after

 

committing to create another beautiful,

smiling, giggling, spunky stranger together, but

then it hits you as the headless dragon corpse

 

became just another cloud fading away from

the settling sun, which ignites the western sky

 

as eastern clouds are devoured by earth’s shadow.

We often chase perfect destinations

seeking to relive perfect moments, as

 

if we were living ghosts who for fleeting

moments have forgotten how to live. But

 

we have far more in common with misting

smirking cumulus dragons that we see

than the ghosts we chase in familiar places.

***

 

Shared at imaginary garden with real toads.