Moon Ghazal

I know everyone’s had it with poems about the moon,
But at least I won’t mention love, just the moon.

They told me the world would be different by now:
no wars and commuter flights to the moon.

Nobody can know who is writing these lines,
so I keep my face dark like one side of the moon.

She left, but in time she returned to me.
Surely my mother was the very first moon.

Like people who revel in others’ unhappiness,
the Empire State Building tries to puncture the moon.

A dish of braised rabbit with cinnamon sauce—
we’re hungry enough to eat the whole moon!

For years now I’ve written my name in water,
a mag for the waiting room of the moon.

Don’t let grief map its tracks on your face—
the dead float nearby on the lakes of the moon.

Shannon Holman, New York, 2001