Liber Lunae - Chapter 22

Verses

Selene, I have loved people who disappeared more completely than you, and none of them had the courtesy to become new again.

You taught me the cruelty of recurrence: the door opens, the face returns, and still it is not the same night.

Endymion had sleep. I have insomnia. Between us, mythology clearly chose favorites.

When you are thin as a cut in the sky, I trust you most. Completion has always made me suspicious.

I wrote her name in moonlight on the table. Morning performed its usual censorship.

The beloved is like the far side: not dark, merely turned elsewhere.

I do not ask you to bring her back. I ask for the smaller miracle of making absence stop behaving like a person.

The city sleeps badly beneath you. Windows glow, dogs argue, someone washes dishes at three in the morning. This is our mortal constellation.

A gray cat sits on the wall and studies you without devotion. I envy his theology.

If longing moved oceans, poets would claim the tides and drown us all.

You are beautiful because you cannot hear this. Every confession needs at least one safe recipient.

I once called loneliness an empty room. Tonight I know better: it is a room with one enormous window.

Wax again, silver liar. I know how the trick works and I still want to see it.

If you meet the sleepers, tell none of them I remained awake for this.