Moonset

Before first light, there was something on the wall
like a pane — a presence, oblique, as if,
outside, there was a stone standing on the air,
exuding light. The full moon,
on the gloss of the painted plaster, shone
like a pale breast — lit, from within,
through the scar tissue’s rivulets,
as though it is all right to love
the idea of motherly sweetness in anything.
I put my hand into it, as if
into the side of one returned
from the dead. And out over the western river,
there she was, going over onto
the top of her head, that first spot
where air had touched her, who did not know
how not to love, or how to love.
And she upside-downed, comet with no
robe of coma trailing it,
and to the south, the seeds of some late stars
still held, dog star, throne, Orion —
the outline creature, like the young in their strollers,
smiling as if outside history,
like the tiny skeleton figure on sonogram
moving its hand through the waters, its five
fingers combing the real. And I saw it’s all
right to love the child, even if
the child were oneself — someone in me changed
sides, at dawn, without asking me. And so
goodbye, my queen, my fearsome darling,
house of horror of my heart. I do not
know how I’ll live without you, the sword of your
terrible worth. And the disc the color
of flame, doused by cream, was slowly
deposited into the earth.

 
Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds is the author of nine books of poetry. The Dead and the Living received the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Unswept Room was a finalist for the National Book Award and The National Book Critics Circle Award, and One Secret Thing was a finalist for the Forward Prize. She teaches at New York University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing where she has been involved with N.Y.U.’s outreach workshops. The Goldwater Hospital Writing Workshop is in its 27th year, and the newest workshop is for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her collection of poetry, Stag's Leap, will be out in the fall of 2012. She lives in New York City and New Hampshire.

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