Mist trails the moon’s departure,
tracing an absence through
the precisely ordered landscape
to the brim of the water, edging
toward the face in the river,
circles it and slips away.
Like the moon, and by its light,
my face is a silver coin tossed
into a dark well and wished on,
its frame of long hair
a rippling shadow of leaves
pointing the way to a peace
I can only imagine,
the eyes seeing beyond
the ghostly grandmother
willows and elms,
beyond the standing flesh of me,
the mouth – the missing line
of a poem. I want to kiss it.
I am no Narcissus, but I cannot stop
looking at my shimmering other.
This liquid face has no age that matters,
no sex that specifically appeals.
It is a painter’s first brushstroke,
bold and horizonless.
I bend close and closer,
almost falling in.
More than my known face
I want that one –
a moon sailing
through rivering stars
on a bright path
home.
This poem was first published by the Pedestal Magazine and was
later included in my chapbook “Stealing Eternity”.
Lynne Burnett 