by Lisa Ortiz
Out at dawn to feed the horse
I note in iron light why no poet chooses to write
about the half moon— the moon that grins and waits
rocks coquettishly on her back—she moves me not.Oh, the full moon, now she is something––
pregnant with metaphor, a crowned huntress
riding o’er the benighted world for love,
the backside of a nymph bathing in an onyx pool,
a poet’s iron discus heart candescent
at the far end of the universe—or—ha—
a sliver of a moon, such an ode to hope,
a crescent so like a lover’s smile, a hook
upon which we may hang a rumpled image
and where it hangs elegant as linen––and of course a new moon
blinding poet eyes, so we can tramp sightless
and admire in the spiteful dark
our lovely tea-light souls.But let us write not of this half moon
this early middle age moon, this size 12 moon, an easy moon,
a moon that abides the way I abide, a moon that tarries
the way I tarry here above you in the dawn, half-lit
to see if you will wake
and love me still.
(first appeared in Words and Pictures Magazine, 2004)