Spacious Skies
Stop. Do nothing.
Breathe. (Always, please.
Unless specifically requested
to hold your breath.)
Now step into this [Box]
Or this one ☐. They are the same.
Shut your eyes.
Imagine the walls are gone.
You are by yourself.
It’s flat. Not much but sky.
Brush. Maybe a road.
The borders are so far away
you can’t see them.
They are beyond.
Beyond the beyond.
About that road…
Look out along it.
It gets narrower until
it squeezes itself
into one tiny line
then down to nothing.
Look the other way.
Same thing.
But good news.
You don’t need to go
anywhere.
You are here.
Oh, breathe. (Always.)
Let the color come in.
All at once
or imperceptibly,
as you like.
Blue, overhead.
Warm tan below.
Red cliffs very far away
at the edge.
A nice hazard yellow
for the dashed line
in the middle
of that road.
Breathe.
It’s all yours for now.
No room for more people here.
Charlie Steak is an author and playwright currently living in the southwest USA, where he hikes a lot. The winters are great but gardening in summer resembles Armageddon (or maybe Mordor). He has written for Space 55, Synthetic Human, Rising Youth Theatre, and other organizations. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Constellations, Bluebird Word, Dogwood Alchemy, Hare’s Paw, Pinyon Poetry, Tangled Locks, and Orion’s Beau.
