Erasure

Erasure
by Gideon Burton

The clouds erase. With every breath or gust
they scrub the oxygen, their tendrils plumb
the height of light, inhaling sailing scum,
their dark armadas roar with blunting thrust
against the mountains where they spill the dust
in rainy sluices, mashed with dirt and dung,
their thirsting hunger licking land with tongues
of thunder flushing raw earth's rattled crust.
The clouds erase. Not cotton rags with moist
persuasion, dabbing loosened airborne crumbs
in lazed surveillance, coasting to a clean:
sky-scourers, deft in vinegars unvoiced.
I'll face these hoverers till I succumb
to their ammonias, glazed in laundered sheen.

Photo: flickr - QuietDangst