Moon Missing, Allan Peterson

Moon Missing

BY ALLAN PETERSON

I was so worried the hickory I recognized

had died from salt burn in the last hurricane

I may have passed by vervain and apple haw

like they didn’t matter, but this spring

it put out seven shoots from its base.

Still, the oldest trick is the moon missing,

then the “new” moon appears,

though we know it’s the old one, and we pretend

to be taken in like the mother or baby

behind the bath towel.

Really it’s the moon winking,

being the stone that holds stones and now footprints.

And when I tell Frances, I see she is a moon

motionless in the doorway, skin reflecting

a lamp, a face that awakens on paper.

Allan Peterson, "Moon Missing" from Fragile Acts