Flesh and Blood Moon
Anyone who hadn’t read
the news might have supposed
it was the end of the world;
that the sun had tried
to come up as usual,
but found to his dismay
that he couldn’t quite
swing it as he had done
since time immemorial,
and so we were left
with a dusky orb
and a darkened world.
But it was not a star
malfunction that night.
It was you, my beautiful
bloody bride,
and I woke up before dawn
and crept outside in my bathrobe
to be with you again,
and maybe even to marry you,
as I have felt we might be
a good match ever since
a waxing moon fell from the sky
like a boomerang of fate
and made a crescent-shaped
scar in my forehead, so that now
from a certain angle,
people tell me they see
that same sad, otherworldly face
that only you have mastered,
especially on those nights
when you show me everything.
I came to look for you,
and there you were,
suspended in the charred sky
like a single Christmas ornament,
as though God did not feel
the need tonight for tinsel stars,
the distraction of clouds.
It made me immensely sad
to gaze upon you, drowning in colors
borrowed from some unspeakable place.
Mars, perhaps.
In my selfish longing, I wanted
to do as they used to promise
in the movies, to lasso you with a rope
and tug you gently down to me,
take you back to bed with me,
and let the dark world go on spinning
without you.
I admit I may have been
slightly deluded to suppose
that you could discern my thoughts,
read my desires, or grant my wishes—
even though as a child
I presumed you could do all three,
and you know I have looked
to you in this way more times
than I can count.
Unlike all the others,
you have never let me down.
Claire Juno, © 2014
vindicating vashti 