[Issue 2017.41]

‘New Moon’, T.D. Walker

Illustration © 2017 Christine Cartwright

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After the second moon arrived, the first said
nothing. The earth did not hide
its disappointment behind the moon’s
lumpy shadow. The earth was not

pulled by new tides. The night
birds, used to sodium-vapor’s
glow, did not watch its rising. Only
we recalibrate ourselves, looking

for small creatures in the darkness to die
off or overrun the fields behind our houses.
An old man lets a cat out the back door.
One plane crashes. Another

lands on time. Its passengers check
the carousel for their bags. The tour bus
fills, leaves for the dark sky
field where they’ll set up for the viewing.

We’ll fill this one too, the tourists
say. The second moon rises. The first
does not show from this distance
where we’ve landed, again and again.

Someone will say the new
moon does not exist, we cannot
see it without our instruments.
In the morning, the old man

lets the cat back inside. The bus
pulls away from the field. The plane takes
off from the same runway. The first moon
cannot see the second: what we see

in the darkness, a flash caught suddenly,
the eye tugging at itself.

© 2017 T.D. Walker

[Issue 2017.41]

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