Love in False Analogies
The moon has always been the very embodiment of lyric poetry. . . The great lunacy of most lyric poems is that they attempt to use words to convey what cannot be put into words.
– Mary Ruefle
Moon, our constant kiss, is the aspirin
for our pale pain, is ballad-wise,
and parable friendly, has a touch of peach.
In lyric diaries heartaches and breaks
are grieved-out: Love’s humoresque
is this broom of language, a-waxing, a-waning.
Love borrows the moon not knowing
its reflective light, the consequence owed,
but like the mother half of invention,
it births all the bliss it can. Moon pleads
like a slightly mocking emoji,
hangs like a paper coaster, slightly wet,
in the periwinkle and pink sky.
(The whole folded makes a fraction.)
Soul, a crutch word, taken to the grave
is not enough to fill it up; Moon dumps
dust like three loads of betrayal;
Love’s sliver snags in the evergreens.
Hope is a lonely word out there in the future.
*
Frederick Wilbur’s collections of poetry are As Pus Floats the Splinter Out and Conjugation of Perhaps. His work has appeared in The Comstock Review, Dalhousie Review, Green Mountains Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Lyric, and Shenandoah among others. He was awarded the Stephen Meats Poetry Award by Midwest Quarterly. He is poetry editor for Streetlight Magazine.
