Nocturne for crescent moon on Lake Tahoe and the sky, generally
how this night
the moon trails silvery light
on the black, mountain-cupped water
but driving home verbs fail,
sensuality fails — a cold glimmer
fading in waves against my skull.
For Thanksgiving, I would have liked
to tell my daughters what I’m thankful for:
getting the piss beat out of me
in the sixth grade. You see, it opened a page
(you can hear the needle and rasp of love
reading Beowulf in a pink-walled, candle-lit room)
I can’t edit sky. It blazed that one night
in spring years ago.
It burned greater than ruined halls,
incitement of swords, all those epics.
It was pale light gilding tableaux
of Crucifixion.
It melded and yellowed with the moon
until I thought I was the moon’s lover,
glowing and singing in a dark forest.
But what matters now are nouns,
cut into being from whatever light is left,
and the moon is no lover, no man.
The coyote in the pine is soundless.
Driving around the Lake
I’m trying not to forget who I am.
I am a skull without much to tell.
I am all the things I can’t escape.
Once, I thought I touched eternity.
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