I was asleep in the other room when your voice
half-woke me; I heard the kittens
squeaking as they nursed, and flies
buzzing. A pigeon stretched its wing
and settled on the windowsill. The daylight moon,
white as an egg, was starting to go down.

I felt the bed rocking under me, the slow up and down
motion of breathing, the wing
of sleep stirring the winds as it flies
over the house, carrying everything away. The cat fed her kittens
and the pigeons drowsed; you worked at the sink, your voice
humming over the onions, the face of the moon.

You were peeling the moon
to put it in the soup. You soothed it with your voice,
its poor astonished face white as eggshell, kittens
climbing your hair, a soup of moonblood and horseflies
in the pot. The moon lay half-plucked on the table and its down
and feathers filled the air with wings.

I wanted to grow my own wings
and fall away out of the window, taking the moon
under my dress, spurred by the grip of kittens'
claws in my shoulders, saving everyone from your terrible voice
which followed me with spells and arrows, trying to bring me down.
And I lay stiff on the bed, amid the buzzing flies.

When I woke up, I tried to tell you how the sandpiper flies,
pretending injury; how she drags one wing
along the ground and cries aloud, her voice
filling the air, leading the cat upwind, away from her down-
filled nest and young; how the moon
watches in silence. The cat thinks only of meat
and kittens.

You didn't understand. The moon had gone down;
you put the playful kittens on the bed, your voice
soothing. The flies fell against the windowpane with noisy wings.

Previously published and copyrighted in Hanging Loose #30
All rights reserved.

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