☽

She’ll insist someday,

your mother,

that you were special

and didn’t know it.

That you skipped

sleep to flick a coin,

tossing it high into the heart

blood of midnight.

But first she imagines footsteps,

a telegram saying conditions

aren’t right, dash, for your birth.

Which must be delayed, full

stop.

☽

You cup those hands

as if money might land in them

the way a finch lands in a stone bath

darkened by moisture.

☽

The bike trailing you for a quarter mile

before you turned

was just your friend,

the wind.

It rushes over you,

cold and commonplace

as a sheet pulled over

a Second Empire walnut cabinet.

☽

Can we admit the moon

is implied? As are lampposts

and the lights of ferries hustling

to port and the suffering shapes

of rats, who evolved an intelligence

without disgust, a fear that encompasses

more or less everything—

☽

But having evaded children,

debts, and marriage, you have now

locked yourself out.

As you climb through flights

of emotion to the super’s office,

you realize the moon’s

revolving door

shuts out half

its guiding light—

☽