THE MOON

Always she

fullness to pendulous

When gone utterly: new

When slender as in her luminous blade

or heavenly bow: the huntress

Always ruler of the night

even in her absence

Before I knew better

I thought the sun followed her

in their round and round

When I began to know too much

she lit my way

After I suspected I knew nothing really

she lit my dreams

casting as they say

her pale as they say

silver coat across the nearest chair

wanton in her ageless way

I too never agreed with that first step

man’s boot upon her face

its print still there

On nights when she tugs at the tides

if you squint you can make it out

a tear near one eye

The Shoe

All laced up and nowhere to go but
dead center I look up at the ceiling
waiting for the other shoe to drop
while this one makes an impression

slightly muddy with a chance of black
with the word shoes in various scripts
gray white blotches of red could be
blood could be paintball but now

but now the tongue strapped down in
its chassis depressed unable to speak
holding its own against the void where
a foot might go where a foot has been

toes turned up as if what was future
is now past there it goes again the foot
thudding heel first across the wooden
floor I look to the clock I think fleetingly

of the sensitive seconds the chiding
words the loss of it all as idiosyncracies
cross purpose each other and yet
the shoe remains stolid or solid

staid and quite without weight
in its heavy way again I want
to look ceiling-wards but cannot
take my eyes off this one shoe