That night we ate steak

by whitehorse

they came today with buckets of paint
to change the sky
the climbed up on high scaffolding
with hammers in thier jeans
and started working

thier sweat dripped down on us like rain
as we stood their
necks craned to get a look at what they were doing

i put my hand in my fathers to let him know
that i didnt know either

my little sister layed in the yard with her stuffed animals
and dreamed that she could fly over the mountains

that distances were really just as far as they are on the globe
that all you had to do was give it a spin.

After dinner they began to come down

one by one they climbed the latters from the sky
and they had paint in thier hair
of a million different colors
and under thier fingernails lurked worlds
of purples, and greens, and yellows

and once again my father and i stood
as the scaffolding broke apart around us
hands interlocked
agreeing that we never liked blue much anyway