THE NIGHT I SAW THE MOON

By Jonathan Chibuike

My sister took me to the middle of the forest,

into the circle where two people met

to find out if they knitted together

like the thread and the torn cloth,

to gaze at the moon when it emerged.

We slid into the shadows like fading daffodils,

and the night stretched out a short sleeve,

invited me to slug my amputated arm in.

I turned my scarred face to the dark sky,

flushed out my blood tongue like tired petals;

my drained eyes shut down like a broken clock,

my charred face mixed with the twilight

because there was no dancing moonlight.

My sister and I waited for half an hour,

alone in the middle of the wilderness,

like two people ostracised from their kindred

for a crime against the gods of their land;

only a drop of frozen dews trickled on my tongue,

down to my jutting jaw and naked neck.

There was no moon appointed to shine tonight.

The following day, the moon staggered to us

like a scanty bone tossed at a hungry wild dog.

I asked the moon why it stayed away.

"Did you not see the clammy fingers of darkness?”

I could not believe that the moon asked me that.

"When the scorpion refuses to act like one,

the children will lift it like a tardy rope.”

#darkpoetsclub