the moon rules this day
not knowing what happens here
(we wait in shadows)
empty city streets
spring trying to break branches
reaching for its light
another day ends
yet its return is constant
giving us new hope
you may have taken it once
but now you slide it into my palm
like a shiny new silver coin
cold and sleek against the nerve endings
i clutch it with my fingertips,
pressing, hoping it will soak up
our bodies’ heat.
(we can pretend) that you really did
snatch that shining circle out of the sky
years back or months ago
it is ours now
i open my fingers and place it
on the rough center of my tongue
(despite my efforts, its purity
keeps it cool in my mouth)
you want a taste
and its light encircles us in the yard
crickets singing love songs
wind tickling the still-summer leaves
stars peeking out, competing for room
distant traffic reminding us where we are
(we are here, we are here, we are here!)
i give it to you
the silver circle that you know i love
that we love together
and with our lips open (our hearts open)
we pass our moon back and forth.
the cold seeps away, draining into the bed
of warmth, of love we have created here tonight.
I saw you dressed in imperfection
Slipping out of the horizon into obscurity
Like an orange Valentine cookie
That my lover took a bite from.
Slowly, slowly you rose up from the dead
And as the Kansas sky tried to swallow you
With its hungry wind and blaring stars, you
Filled the midnight with a semicircle of light.
(a waning gibbous science teachers would say)
But to me, your missing piece made you whole
As you bathed the highway with your persistence,
Your imperfect circle guiding me all the way home.
catch me a moon once meant
fix my broken heart
(at sixteen, when in pieces
my heart’s only remedy were
the silver splashes of light)
catch me a moon now means
give me a moment
(a moment to myself, to bike,
to run, to remedy stress
with silver splashes of light)
catch me a moon was a story
I wrote (and memorized,
reciting its words as I tackled
giant hills on my way to school
under silver splashes of light)
catch me a moon is a poem
I write (holding my mended heart
as I rediscover the well-lit path
that will carry me—carry all of us—
as we reach for silver splashes of light.
Step Write Up 