Stairway
Cynthia Oliver
Under the frosted barred window
the child curls up- a cocooned green
caterpillar winged in sleep.
The stars sit nestled in separate pills
downed by the moons swallowing child
praying in tiny gasps for rain.
Later under pelts of winter rain
the child's drowsy head tilts on the window
as an elderly woman leaning on a child
for support. Chilled in her tight green
sweater, she glares in curses to the pills
packed under cotton that force sleep
like a provisional nightlight. Facing verging sleep
her leaded lids pulse rampant with the torrent rain.
Peering through angry slits cutting the pills
into damaged roads, the shaking window
bounces her head- the bruised ego of green
thumbs. Arms circling calves, the child
moans in whimpers as sweltering children,
who flower like the heads of artichokes- sleep
on brown clover patches, where green
is inhaled with mildewed whips by transparent rain.
She hovers over temptation, shaking the fogging window,
while thunder beats the table, pounding the pills
to the wood slats like a slapping parent. The rolling pills
swerve in roads towards the tempted child,
dispersed as splattered paint on the cracking window.
The whipping rain pardons her ominous sleep,
stifles it as rainbows waiting out the rain-
stomping it as verdure only shuts in green.
Outside her yard, the unexpecting sprouting green
stems seep into the shape of the oval pills
and roll towards the top stair, the end this rain.
The outstretched legs of the unbent child
elongate with numb, pressure-induced sleep
while the humid air collects and buries the window.
Squinting to see the sprouting green clovers, the child
hears the rain squealing, the pills counting the stairs,
waves over the dewed pane and sways to sleep.
