by Lynn Finger
Even the moon’s not up yet, Julia, and when you take a lens
to the sky it doesn’t change where we are. The loss of you
isn’t anything to understand. The owl outside your window
flattens wings against the pine tree like serrated fans, and rough
claws curl around the branch. I don’t know how to let the slab
of memories slide into the ocean like falling sandstone.
The moon’s not up, but if you stand in the wet pebbles at the beach,
the waves still wrap around and you’re moving even if you’re still,
and that’s exactly the point. People say loss, but it’s not enough,
when someone’s gone, the silence is a rip in the atmosphere, an
expunge of air pressure. I’m shaken, even when I don’t want to be.
As those days passed, you could button with only one hand, eyeline
focused down, the other hand limp and useless, and you stumbled,
tripping, so graceless and yet floating. Until one time, you simply
lie down.
We are pardoned
by the shake of life, and now I am not surprised by a ventricular white
moon, beating over the spiked pines, and I watch, like I always
knew it would arrive.
::
Lynn Finger’s works have appeared in 8Poems, Perhappened, Book of Matches, Fairy Piece, Drunk Monkeys, and ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Lynn also recently released a poetry chapbook, The Truth of Blue Horses, published by Alien Buddha Press. She was nominated for 2021 and 2022 Best of the Net Anthology. Lynn edits Harpy Hybrid Review, and her Twitter is @sweetfirefly2.
Image: Mehdi MeSSrro
Image description: wavy blue-back hills of sand.
Psaltery & Lyre 