Dumpling Kaiser #4: Clouds

“I’m going now,” Dumpling Kaiser said.


“No,” I said. “Wait. Please. You must tell me—”


Dumpling Kaiser disappeared quickly.

But she didn’t disappear behind

the convenience store roof. The light parts

of her Britney Spears-like face turned white,

the shadows turned grey and indigo.

The giant head of Dumpling Kaiser

became a cloud, shaped like Britney Spears,

bright, puff-ball white with grey-blue shadows,

drifting against the sky, losing shape,

becoming one particular cloud

among many others, and then lost,

an anonymous white patch among

a near infinity of white, laced

by shadows of grey and indigo.


I thought to myself: Clouds are moisture,

evaporated, risen, then cooled.

Tiny droplets suspended in air.

How many of those clouds are just clouds?

How many are just droplets in air

and how many had been something else?

How many had been somehow talking?

To whom did they talk? What did they say?





(Tomorrow: Dumpling Kaiser #5: Thinking About It Now)