by Sandy Longhorn
The moon, Sister, bright disc upon which
we spent our wishes, has reset itself to zero.
Nothing now but an empty dish in the flat,
black night, and we are left to sleep in fits,
as we did in that wild room of our youth,
woken by creak and snap, the machinery
of shadows, a juvenile oak standing
sentinel outside our screened window.
Your breath was my barometer. I drifted
in its steady current, tensed at its quickening.
Tonight we rest a thousand miles apart,
exchange quick texts in the dark to wrestle
the madness of our father’s mind, these words
no surrogate for your hand reaching across
that dark space.
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