By p.e. garcia
poem for the Super Frost Moon that appeared on the eve of my 30th birthday
in the sky, a little egg
hatches ice over the shadow-
light & ugly muscles
that twist
my skeleton.
i sing duende
for the headless deer
& ask a black squirrel
to hold
my hand.
who named december
when like a wound
my body wet with blood
was born into earth from
my mother?
one day
i’ll ask an ancestor
if they ever expected
me to be
the tree they planted.
one day
the thin frost coating my skin
will flow like rivers
mindless through
the rock.
one day
we’ll all breathe easy,
the graves will shudder & shout,
& the moon will meet
the sea.
a photograph of the moon
every poem is about the moon in that every poem is about the earth & the moon is a part of the earth—a dry dead part but still part—ergo it follows that every poem is an ocean because every ocean is a part of the earth & every part of the earth is part of the moon & every ocean is the moon
i mean
that’s just logic: every ocean is the moon
you know, like a photograph,
like Barthes once said: there are three things to say
about the subject
of a photograph:
he will die
he is dying
he is dead
ergo every photo is the living-dying-dead
ergo every photo is the moon is a poem is the ocean is the living-dying-dead
**
when i’m sleepy & lost on the subway
i’ll try to find the moon
beneath New York City
no-one is sleeping, just burrowing around with perpetual open-eyes,
god, where is the moon & where is the ocean?
when i’m on the Greyhound back to Philadelphia,
i’ll try to find the moon
somewhere on the Jersey Turnpike
everyone is asleep outside the city limits
god, here is the moon & here is the ocean
**
i keep saying the word actually
i roll it around in my mouth
like a jawbreaker
a little sugarmoon
sweet & lingering
& meaningless
**
it is dark outside but the moon keeps reflecting daylight
from the other side of the earth
**
i keep saying the word sueño
i spill it over my lips
like a too-big gulp of water
it runs over my chest
i dream of a sleep
like Barthes once said: bursting with legibility
**
the moon is always asleep in the ocean,
waiting to pull up the blanket of water
waiting to pull all the words over our heads & drown us
i want to ask you to take a picture of the living-dying-dead, but there isn’t anything that could freeze an ocean (& i hear the earth keeps heating up & up & up)
we’ll burn to death before too long
beneath the glow of the moon,
beneath the weight of an ocean,
beneath the bodies of our words
& when we do,
when we sleep,
sueño, sueño, sueño
__
p.e. garcia is a Features Editor for the Rumpus and the author of fictions & incantations (Sad Spell Press), dear god, dear gordon (tenderness lit), and p.e. garcia (Awst Press). They were born and raised in Arkansas but currently live in Philadelphia where they are a PhD student in Rhetoric.