Talking To The Moon
A defeated politician is in circulation again, as we say of coins, and his mouth is full of words.
His words have all been handled smooth.
They'd shrink, like lozenges, except some sweat from everyone who's had them is on them.
He could be you, why don't you support him?
But some people hoard words. "The year the lake froze all the way across . . . ," a sentence might begin and then nod, sleepy in a hot kitchen.
The words are a spell to make the lake freeze again.
The sentence never ends.
Rick used to love to tell how he and Joanne would creep into her parents' house after dates, and under the dining room table he'd eat her out, he'd say, as if she were an egg and he a weasel.
His eyes gleamed with grief.
He wanted her back.
He told the story again and again.
The full moon fills the canyon with pale cream.
My huge dog leans against my knee so hard he'd fall over if I moved.
Soon he'll go to sleep under the juniper.
The other morning a finch landed on his back while he slept.
He unfurled one eye.
Hmmm, a finch....
I tell him his name.
He goes to the juniper and sleeps.
The moon's so bright it has no features, button with no holes.
I've nothing to say to the moon.
Still,
I want to talk.
I want words to be magic, some secret I have the way I have my body, so long as it lasts.
I want words to be food, enough for us all to eat.
The mild stars shine.
The words I want are sewing my body to sleep, the no news that is good news, blood tying and untying its knots.
William Matthews
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