Box Brownie Sky

My father is on the roof and I am

sleeping in my cot. Just a hint of cloud

in the off-white sky. He is looking east

or north toward where he was, is, is not

My father is on the roof and i am

in some room awaiting a name: a cloud

of possibles. My name is to the east

or north. One word at a time. The whole lot

are in closed books. A corrugated roof

offers father as a word. His toolbox

explains. On a closer shed roof barbed-wire,

a hand-split timber fence below. The roof-

line has two words, father and his toolbox.

Overhead one cloud, and below barbed-wire.