Moon Lore

By Laurie Klein

She is a widening bowl for absence—
     unending inclination grieving            
          the emptied months, the cellophaned

boxes of pastel candles, long ago shelved 
    alongside cake pans in animal shapes. 
          No nursling’s milky grin, arresting 

her heart. So long, stellar IQ. Gene pool,
     dimming. Dammed. Still, the cosmic
          stardust hourly sifts
     
through the atmosphere. Celestial legacies 
     minutely embed
          each atom, in its descent—

carbon, salt, iotas of iron—infusing us all.
     Cached within the most intimate cells, 
          even the vacant womb cradles 
     
hints of heaven,
     hope, a borrowed moon,
          on the wane. Somewhere,

even now, unexpected 
     and unembraced, a slip of a life
          waxes strong, perhaps

gravitating our way. O windfall child
     of the longest dream, Come,
          name us. 

Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens and Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, MAR, New Letters, Barrow Street, 13th Moon, Adana, and Every Day Poems, and they have also been heard on NPR member stations. She lives in the Inland Northwest.

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