Ridderkerk

A white cloud with a travel bag on its back

has just missed the gust of wind

that’s blowing toward Rotterdam.

It sits on an isolated dock,

midair, that transports airflow.

It stares out, occasionally moves its tired

butt and watches how its own shadow on the river

patiently plays Rock-Scissors-Cloth

with the junior Sun.

River Maas is so quiet that you can hear the cloud

cough. And through the crossed legs of the cloud,

only a few sleepy freighters pass silently.

“China Shipping”, the words on the container,

row like distant snoring. Suddenly the cloud catches

the sight of me by the river reeds—

having missed my ship, I sit restlessly

on a small lonely pier.  

We say Hello to each other.

Its cloudy vowels drift around— so difficult

to communicate with it. It extends

a cloudy hand, trying to pass me

a Cloudy Cigarette. I decline the offer

as I only smoke the Yellow Crane Tower.

We try to make each other understood:

I have a beautiful daughter; the white cloud has a

a mixed-race son with a dark cloud that drifted

away last year to pick up singing above Cape Verde.

Before we go deeper,

Three-Masted Wind arrives, sailing toward

the Erasmus bridge.

My ship also appears in the upstream.

We take out our cell phones at the same time, shoot

some pictures, then the cloud goes on its own way

to Rotterdam while I set out in the opposite direction:

to a village of windmills

so pinky pretty like my daughter.