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The Cloud



No, I don’t want to walk with you,
I’m sorry,
I want to walk with the cloud up there,
the dark, looming, vaporous mass.

I can smile at you,
laugh at your jokes,
help you with the work,
but that’s quite all.

I want to walk with the cloud up there
and become shapeless and massless
and melt into a great sorrow
that descends to dissolve into the dirt
that I’ve smiled at and laughed at
and helped create.

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