trout

Meditation on Moonlight

Brandy McDougall

We call these shards of light, the moon's phases,
though there are many moons hovering overhead.

They wait for us to see them in their silk skins
of black, and answer their spoken meditations.

But every night there are only flowers that close
to sleep, birds that hatch and tuck their new beaks
under their left wings, and spiders, holding
their thoraxes, that hang from threads they've spun
themselves, to whisper our secrets to, pass on
our words in the darkness. We know the sun
will bloom against the sky in a few short hours
so that the gnats and flies can whir in a cloud

haloing the compost heap that the rat calls home –

and I can long for the man, an ocean away,
who gave me a painting of red hibiscus,
five open like bonfires against the night sky,
star-lit, like a beautiful thought.