Half Day In Moon-Tone Room

by Jacqueline Markowski

We lie together never really
knowing who's there between,
or within, or even why, but there,
in that room, moments break open
into tiny little spasms of liquid—

tears and sweat— viperous guilt.
The moment we reach the place we can't
define we are sudden. The sounds of the birds
screech in and out of the lost stillness
we've created—  here?  Where
we are least passive, least sedentary,
of all places to make one
quiet consciousness of two
racing alligators.

As the awkwardness breaths heavily
upward in the smoky room, white
walls darken like wood paneling,
pupils dilate, become round moons
absorbing each other's shine,
each other's light—
and then they are one
Vermont moon.

Gravity rakes fiercely with its waves, the feelings
that shook my nerves, offering up
to the beach (with its reject
sand castles and moldy, forgotten
beach bags) all losses of
conscientious objection,
paradoxical notions
incased in glowing antique renditions
of nature verses nurture.

Our moon rang out a silent truth,
spilling dialectics
of truth in/honesty of
emotion; a wave of premonitory
nostalgia swept us both
under the rugged, hateful tide.
I could feel it, like salt water slapping
at my ten year old back (sun-kissed,
damaged; but young skin heals nicely)
pulling at my torso
just at the moment
you hugged onto me quietly,
the man in the moon is
thinking about it, too,
you told me.

What you didn't say,
what I didn't think
ahead to was that,
inevitably, this violent, sibilant tide
will turn its sights to the next light
house, our nautical parable
interpolated amid
the skeletons and the other
forgotten jewels.