23
Geography
Divided by the dark, we are
moths darting towards the light
trapped by the bulging sides
of a glass bell. My wings are bruised
but I know we want the same thing.
Salvation is a naked bulb, weak next to the moon.
Under the startling swell of the moon
dark door, windows telling us who we are,
a place we all choke down the same thing:
a soothing name, personality given to light
secret thought beneath the blood of a bruise,
voice in the corner laughing, holding aching sides.
It’s where I glance at the color of my insides -
behind my shoulder the black eye glance of the moon.
Curiosity is winding towards me, bruised
living, as though to kill us where we are.
It materializes: thick rope intestine, wet and light
enough to pass for a living thing.
I swear to you now I would stop this thing,
wrap arms around thick grieving sides
to haul it back into the light
and place less importance on the moon.
What is important, as a refrain: you are.
You are. Repetitions maim me enough to bruise.
I feel as if you are staring at this bruise,
pinpoints of color, sick yellow a thing
that leads these skin cells towards death, as they are
fast living, to hold in their swelling sides.
From you I would take something other than this moon,
cell wall given into nothing but a vestige of light.
This is the pattern of the rain in the failing light,
fall heavy enough to darken and bruise
pocket marks on the face of the moon.
I will take a rock and beat this thing
into the moist earth, each blow splitting a side.
I will give or take you as you are.
Somewhere light becomes something
I bruised when trying to get inside
you. The moon will tell you where you are.
There was something sacred that she touched once, and she wasn’t sure when or where it was, but might have been some time ago in that place that wasn’t a place that smelled of dirt and rot, buried deep in the cracks of her sobriety and chastity…
This is what it takes to keep you sober:
