Two Moons

Two moons, two moons reflected in the rippled glass—
two moons, different phases of the same, one looking to,
and one away. Two moons and I am in love with their common light again. Two moons like formal tea partners, and I can almost hear them talking, oh the gossipy stars can fill the night’s parlor with such a clamor, like background
radiation, like the harsh whisper of atoms churning
billions of light years from here… Oh why do we listen?

I am caught in the gravity of two moons, one dressing
in night, the other baring its alabaster skin—how I know
it is an illusion, how I know there is only one lonely satellite
passing over, passing by. But to think of the possibilities
of living on a different planet with twin bodies orbiting,
a place much less abandoned than this.

J. P. Dancing Bear is editor for the American Poetry Journal and Dream Horse Press. He is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, most recently, Cephalopodic (Glass Lyre Press, 2015), and Love is a Burning Building (FutureCycle Press, 2014). His work has appeared or will shortly in American Literary Review, Crazyhorse, DIAGRAM and elsewhere.