dis-still

moon

if I dissolved

some dust of you…

if, in the liquid of distilled,

valley grapes on the tip of picking…

if I were to accede

and kneel in your surface

and open my skin

at the wrist (you know

the place.   I’ve sewn

a pocket there)

I’ll unstitch it and you, dry,

will cauterize…

if I carry you, thicker clay, back

to the world, and if I graft

you like a modern Rashi

and after the season

casked you

oh but there then would

be wine!

It would be you, moon,

and all your light

on all those vineyard

nights, when the knots

and vines and coy skies

opened around you and held you

on their tongue and softened

you into the fruit it had yet

to bear.

moon, I’ll unlace

my purse-pocket, and your solid

light will pull up and out,

because here I can say

separating you from you

was umbilical, and the two live

ends want each other

again.

it’s a complicated thought

but the pocket, unlaced like corset

string, sighs, and all I need

to survive is one pinch and I’ll tie you

beneath this phoenix

keeping watch on my skin

and sift you in and wait

for the wine to breathe,

for it to seep inside of me

and it will be the last breath

I’ll ever need. 

Don’t we all want to be

light that will never burn us?

Why then don’t we kneel,

 brush and sift

your precious cheek

steam it

inside what’s been burned within us

all these years, what’s charred

our walls.  Let’s marvel

 at what shifts the balance

of decay into something

worth swallowing

a single drop of

to save what others

would have thrown away

without ever glancing

up at what’s glowing

 and rising in the wine

in the glass.