After parting

by Cáit O'Neill McCullagh

vShow me how it is to be the moon,
when the lift pegs up her patchwork
of merk; uncolour, lenticular drift.

Let me be the lanterned face of night.
Wash day’s dimming upon me in the pitch-
livid lochan of a ben. Maroon me—

pitied light—the jettit caul of forgetting.
Keep me from lucence; from minding
on the swallow’s spree. Fledged;

four-point stars, sootit motes.
They swoop us, entrust the plump honesty
of their milky bellies to our mercy, dance

the roilit barley, teach us to love the sky;
to know that it is gravity that makes a body,
claims it from the watered air. Arrow-tails,

they pierce us. Last generosity of summer,
to crave the agility of clouds    & after     
after & soon     ‘wing’ & ‘flit’

these become our loneliest words.
Remember this: when I ask you
to tell how a frayit ebb might

heal—do not show me a bird.
Rather, set a dark halo about this skin;
(itself, the long-waned memory of feathers)

then, show me: how it is to be the moon.