Member Poem

On the Night They Took Your Life
 
There was a ring around the moon,
and I went looking for you, outside, when the stale air inside
grew too easy, too still, and my knitting stomach
slipped its stitches.
 
There you were, you were,
between the old April cracks thawed
through the ground, and the stars
we’d shared since you left me, left me, left
 
my body. I said, “What’s the matter, baby?”
and I wanted you back,
a baby, my baby—
fastened to my breast,
 
your breath, my life,
white drops pearled around your tiny mouth—
just so you’d believe me once again
when I say, “The world is your Milky Way.”
 
You were there, beneath the sugar maples,
their syrups drumming against thin wood; you
cast no shadow in their shade, the moon a ring
of light at your feet.
 
You said, “I just need to see the earth
from the sky,” and I knew
the war had sliced the moon
from your sky, shot
 
all the light from your stars. You were glad
to be home, on this farm, on this hill,
where the circles of night sky
meet the torn edges of land.
 
You said, “There’s a ring
around the moon,” and we sat together
beneath the ring. The moon waxed colder
behind a hush of haze, threw unsteady light
 
on your unreadable face. I drew you close,
felt your baby ring, safe on its silver chain,
tight against my throat, said, “Talk to me,
tell me everything. Let it go.”
 
I need to share the air, warm
as the edge of autumn—a slow-turning season,
when the pulse slows, green to yellow, to red—slow
as the syrup slipping over the edge
 
of your plate this morning, when I called your name,
knew from the sound of your empty bed
that the shrapnel of broken stars cut you
from me, from me, from me

Originally published in New Millennium Writings 2010, issue 19