An Image I Will Soon Forget

Dugong shaped cloud, tail dispersing
in evening trail, devouring the stumps
of Holiday Hills down its lavender smoke guzzle.
Floating swimmingly, satin skin curled in cumulus.
Like air clay molded and dismantled, carelessly shattered,
the way children’s play-doh crumbles,
immersed in a carpet of sky irregularly vacuumed.

Not even remotely alive anymore, pixelated cloud shard
carried by May current.
Maybe a crawdad, or simple a soup stirred
and waiting to be scooped, slurped up.
Evidently, in the car while passing,
I was a shrimp to the dugong, unnoticed.
I blink as the eyelids of a camera would,
and I am no longer in view, my crustacean
tires scurrying down Three Mile.