The night the moon left us all the spiders lost their webs.
Gossamer lay empty in the corners as they crawled out
The windows and cracks, haphazard,
Drunk in the dull wind. We climbed onto the roof
Under a light drizzle, the darkening terracotta
Sliding like scree underfoot.
She was the head of a nail at that point,
Barely visible through the pollution,
Though everyone had turned their lights off,
The street an inky river with all of us
On its shore, neighbors standing in clusters
Like dark reeds, cattailed heads pointed up
To watch her go, rain falling in our eyes.
One man kept frantically checking a telescope,
He invited others to look through it but most,
Like us, seemed to stay where they were,
Slightly removed, eyes fixed on the dot that was
Now barely bigger than a bright star, a pinprick
In a murky sky. And it was quiet, so quiet:
The owls, mice, pines, houses, John Does, river stones,
Babies, books, waiters, refrigerators, sorrows, cicadas,
Hatching turtles, tides, clowns, mothers, quarrels,
Wishes, mirrors, clocks, ducks, me, you, All
Holding our breath as the speck became
Too far away to even see, swallowed.
Sam Bovard is a poet originally from Dallas, TX. He is currently an MFA student at the University of Montana. Find him in the mountains, or on Twitter @SamBovard.
Image: wired.com
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Heavy Feather Review 