Cloud Wisps

by Isabel Chenot

They floated by like jellyfish of lucent gauze
or cobweb tissue with a loosened fringe:
clouds spooled so wispy thin they only netted evening moths —
membranes of future rain, catching a tinged

flutter across waves that bend and shatter
into color.
Filaments of water,

angel veins,
tangling wings in nacre skeins.