3 March 2026

 

3 March 2026

 

“Where do they keep the dark?”

                                    Christian Wiman

                                    A Light Store in the Bowery

 

Behind me the moon is

eclipsing.  Her light is being

taken slice by slice

 

until she will be entirely

behind a shadow that seems more

solid than she is, & more

 

permanent for its impermanence.

From time to time

I imagine I

 

am a shadow too, I glide

room to room

window to window

 

while she declines, her falling

is discrete behid (is

that even a word?) between

 

cedar limbs, March bare.

something’s struck the west

side of the house just now,

 

as though it were flying east but

seeing over its shoulder

this brief closure & I know

 

enough about the weight

of sounds to fathom

the glass of that impact

 

may be cracked & too

I know enough about waiting

for these events to be 

 

eventually blotted out entirely

briefly I’ll keep seeing to the sky

& how it slides

 

& weeks will go by before

(& melted now & rung

like a rag) I’ll see

 

the heap of what it was

that struck the eaves

& fell in a confetti

 

of this brief moon being

eclipsed of her

light.