Tonight the Moon
I
is cut from the sky, a tooth excised by a razor.
Rain slashes & the bramble trees sway & tear.
A tap on my window. No one’s
there.
But he used to be.
II
I wear my father’s old wool scarf. It smells of
patchouli & Captain Black, a talisman. All night
the tapping on my window grows. A wet branch
lies across, a sodden ghost, & shadows
my sight.
If he were here, he would want me
to feel free to leave.
III
My father said it takes a thousand years for the stars
to drift. Sounds right. Change is an adagio grief.
My thoughts are worn smooth,
a den carved into the earth by a fox
who can’t stop.
I wait to breach when the blistering
rain falters.
At the most dark, the truth is still bare for us,
a magnificent skeleton that
we pick clean.
I
is cut from the sky, a tooth excised by a razor.
Rain slashes & the bramble trees sway & tear.
A tap on my window. No one’s
there.
But he used to be.
II
I wear my father’s old wool scarf. It smells of
patchouli & Captain Black, a talisman. All night
the tapping on my window grows. A wet branch
lies across, a sodden ghost, & shadows
my sight.
If he were here, he would want me
to feel free to leave.
III
My father said it takes a thousand years for the stars
to drift. Sounds right. Change is an adagio grief.
My thoughts are worn smooth,
a den carved into the earth by a fox
who can’t stop.
I wait to breach when the blistering
rain falters.
At the most dark, the truth is still bare for us,
a magnificent skeleton that
we pick clean.
Lynn Finger’s poetry has appeared in Night Music Journal, Ekphrastic Review, Mineral Lit Mag, Feral, and is forthcoming in Drunk Monkeys, Thimble, and 8Poems. Lynn is an editor at Harpy Hybrid Review, and works with a group that mentors writers in prison. Twitter: @sweetfirefly2.