Auras
The angels in your hair
are harbingers
of fire—of stoke
and ordained smolder,
of smoke and blaze
and ash—of migraine
and what comes, always, after.
Tonight, they wear
their brightest robes
of fractured light.
Twin daughters of the fallen,
they need no praise.
They know that soon
I’ll bow to them.
Patient, profane,
their long spears
shimmer in the dark.
But there’s still time, you say,
unbuttoning
my shirt.
You pull your hair back slow.
Their eyes are gears
grinding in reverse. Their necks
swivel like
an owl’s.
You kiss my chest.
They will not look away.
◆
The Moon
When your mother told me moon was your first word, I didn’t believe her. You dozed in her recliner and it lowered in the glass behind you. Even now, she said, you look your best in borrowed light. Years later, it also set like that—bright, awkward—on the night we slept for the first time in our new apartment. Too tired to unpack, we watched it from the floor. You told me the only man who’s buried on its surface shares my name. I didn’t believe you. Tonight, the sky is dark. I don’t know if you’re coming home. The experts say the moon withdraws from us an inch per year. You called, you said, to hear my voice. And though you’d hate to hear me say it, you are your mother’s daughter. Love can also mean to be apart, you said. The moon: a pearl, a sickle, a lozenge for the lost, a farce, a face, a desolation, no door, a mirror—not you but your first word.
