Early Winter
From Dirt Songs: A Plains Duet. Backwaters Press, 2011.
Last night the sharp slice of moon
poured down its milk.
Not in the forecast, but there it was, liquid
and jiggly suspended over the front lawn,
as long as you stood silent, drank it all in.
In the light of day—no sign of it—
brown leaves and bared limbs,
the littered ground after a long season,
only the grassblades carrying a residue
of off-white. Odd and fickle,
this landscape of the heart.
And yet: breathe in the late afternoon sun,
feel it warm the geraniums of summer
on the windowsill, fuchsia and rose and salmon
flirting back, their shameless love.