(photo by Adrien Broom)
By: TONY PALMIERI
for briana 2-14-13
science cannot know the moon
i know
cannot see beyond reflection,
past the borrowed light
she gives the world,
to her secret heart
and the glow she saves for we who follow
if my mother spoke true
legend cannot know the moon
i know
as her cycle calls the wolves
to bite
this wretched, bloody charge
does not become
my giving moon
who showers sun and earth
with beams
for a bruised corona
a damaged atmosphere
the essential third
whose blood will serve
not to rend
but bind
does she draw, as they say,
the water from the seas?
a magnet
pulling, pushing the tides
and redder flows
or is it me that orders
the moon?
could i be so arrogant
to think:
her sea of tranquility
is mine to swim
at will?
no.
my mother was right
of course.
a child, five or seven
‘look, mommy, she’s following me.’
driving home from religion
in autumn,
‘no, honey,’ she said,
‘it’s you who follows
the moon.’
Tony Palmieri is a poet, fiction writer, and beautifier of the world. He used to do (nationally-applauded) wedding flowers, and now he does cakes (and study walls and stage sets and flowers again, but in front yards this time). He is onstage sometimes, and off-stage at others. For more of his writing, try “Sweet Tooth,” in Big Ugly Review.
Beauty
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