The Boy

The more I thought, the more thought moved air. The air thickened, thickened to water, thickened to cream, pink cream and red butter before it hardened to boy, a boy finer than any formed from clay. He loved only wind. At night I tied his leg to the bedpost and studied how profoundly he slept on emptiness, floating near the ceiling on breezes too soft to lift a curtain, and I learned much about thought, thought fluttering on an unfelt breath like a pennant of abandoned spider silk, before love touched desire and the boy dissolved to red water, red mist, the red mist seen through a scope, when from half a mile, a sniper's tap mystifies the brain.