1.
Across the midnight is the moon, our eyes white,
match the snow laid from Warsaw to Decatur;
we strain in our window pane, cowl
over the porch. This night –
I and my siblings should sleep – we stay to see
the moon’s dimples.
2.
We are five.
Father, our growling bear,
Mother, the mighty pen, the stronghold.
Mother wanted to be a Solid Gold Dancer instead.
We know that. She jazzes the kitchen with her ballad hips.
Myself: I turn to my bike mechanics,
become scavenger of lug nuts, break pads
that survived the winter. I remold carport loft;
lift from grandfather's furniture
store to put in light fixture.
3.
Before shadow’s evening I notice raccoons.
They wash hands like me,
cautious to keep unwanted visitors away: masked
for the knight's work. Mother says
raccoons mean more chores.
4.
In Indiana,
in the winter,
opossums steal the dog bowl every night.
Mother says they are lazy,
teach their children to steal.
“. . . leave their families with no
integrity.”
She hates the ways of opossums,
thieves in the night
hanging
under porch,
until she unbolts bolt.
(She believes in God and heart.
She trusts only her spirit
found written in God’s book.)
5.
she built the family disillusioned on words, after living
twenty-one years with a man changing his father’s ways.
Mother, from summit of Erie Canal chose to stay.
I would wake at midnight to rummage Frigidaire
to see her write mystical lines to blood moon.
hair half combed,
lingering about shoulders and pen,
helping to spell out words.
Father said, “It’s a disease,
stealing from the night.”
cataract she is cataract
6.
in the morning we hear lions
calling us with leather snaps
swords painted on my dream
from her thorax a tempered steal stare
as it enters our room in Goliath
steady steps hovering over our beds
our names socks shirt shoes
outside a 7 A.M. fog
thick
as my mother’s slurred tiredness
back to bed pull up the covers turn off the lights
father, if she doesn’t stop
i’ll live in the garage
7.
“You don’t know it all . . . never will.
Let the sun block out the weak light.
Honey, watch for the black moon.”
My mother’s wisdom in metaphor.
I’ll never change,
grow more vigilante, un-compliant.
The moon is crossed out. It’s spring now. At night
I sneak to my loft,
chatter with raccoons,
plan that future bike shop below,
write out schematics,
and trust only voices
of the Good Book: Psalms.
David.
