Amos & the Borrowed Sky

Up past the rafters, past the rusted weather-vane, past the soft hush of the windowpane, a small brown mouse in a borrowed cape tied the wide blue sky on like a shape.

He stitched a cloud at the edge of his ear and whispered, "the world is mine to steer." The chimney coughed. The shingles sighed. The weather-vane, polite, replied.

"Small one," it said, "the sky's not yours — but neither is it anyone's, of course. We borrow it, the way we borrow rain, the way a window borrows back its pane."

So Amos held the blue thing loose, the way a child might hold a goose: firm enough to keep it near, soft enough to make it dear.

He climbed the slope of slate and tin, he felt the early stars begin. A cat below him yawned and stretched — the map of evening, freshly sketched.

The first cloud passed. He let it go. The second drifted, sweet and slow. The third one paused, considered him, and bowed once at the chimney's rim.

"Brave little tailor of the air," it murmured, "borrow if you dare — but leave the seams a little loose, for moon, for migrating goose."

He promised. And the city hummed. The lamp-lighters were nearly come. He sat with sky tied at his throat and felt, for once, the world afloat.

Below him, supper. Above him, song. A borrowed sky is not a wrong — it's only weather wearing you, and wearing, too, what you've come through.

— end of preview —

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