Then the full
moon rose
& filled the
windows
and I put my arm
around you
as you slept
& I slept
alongside you
for a while.
All around us the world.
And in it us
neither large nor
small. This
is the poem
where the moonlight
will whiten everything & I
will let go
of the world
as it was
once. It was probably
never that way
I will think,
but its cage
wasn’t visible then
& we thought we were
free, we thought
there was history
in the world—
but it was an
illusion, wasn’t it, it
must have been,
because otherwise how
could it have
disappeared
so suddenly.
But the whiteness
is whitening the panes
beyond us
ever brighter
as you sleep,
& your sleep, yr kind
sleep says no, no,
it is all true here
in the poem,
says I won’t tell you
there’s freedom
anywhere
but look
at what you hold
in your arms
for free
as the moon
rises
over the fields
without us,
as it rises in the eyes
of all the watchers
in their dens
on their
branches in the hollows of
what were once
the sun-warmed furrows
farmers cut
into the earth
when there were farmers.
This is drawn from “Killing Spree.”
