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.