by Elizabeth Kerlikowske
If you can see the moon from your window
even through the wall of branches
then it is calling you to worship.
Hard to stay in bed,
impossible to stay in the house.
If you can see the moon from the front porch,
you can see raccoons and the seven doe
in blue shadows. The owl wonders
what you are doing here. Thick
wandering roots reach from the trees,
dusted with a skin of snow, like veins
on the backs of your hands going
where they must go.
If you can see the moon from Earth,
the cataclysm is still in the future.
Your breath is a cloud without shape.
even through the wall of branches
then it is calling you to worship.
Hard to stay in bed,
impossible to stay in the house.
If you can see the moon from the front porch,
you can see raccoons and the seven doe
in blue shadows. The owl wonders
what you are doing here. Thick
wandering roots reach from the trees,
dusted with a skin of snow, like veins
on the backs of your hands going
where they must go.
If you can see the moon from Earth,
the cataclysm is still in the future.
Your breath is a cloud without shape.
Elizabeth Kerlikowske’s latest chapbook is Falling Women, with painter Mary Hatch.
