If eyes are the windows

then ears are the doors, flesh waves in every gentle roar. I hold the memories

of August in my ribs,

when the moon felt like teeth— in the dark of scaffolds and juniper trees, I recalled the things I both fear

& revere        like graveyards at dusk or elderly librarians;       things which linger in spite of physics. And

the sonata blew through

me in windsong while the leaves thronged to forgive me my earnestness. I am fluent

in all of my lacks—how I have claim to neither rubble nor soil. It is said the moon, too, was once earthen

debris: an involuntary gasp

floated from the lips

of the firmament

.

.

.

& how to learn moonlight when you’ve never seen at all? (the slipp’ry smooth of a seashell, a flute’s hollow lilt)

This poem was originally published in Portland Review on June 9, 2020.