Duplex II
inspired by Jericho Brown
When the crescent moon holds the sky with a spoon
all the shapes stumble.
All the shapes stumble when we sleep
like animals known only by tracks and traces.
The animals known only by tracks and traces
know you didn’t choose to pierce this world. You’re here.
You’re here probing the sounds of gardens in the rain,
binging the mind’s appetite, spying the pigeons dressed in purple.
The pigeon dressed with purple wings
curls ribbon on a present lodged in flower petals.
In the center of the flower
are all the things you didn’t know you love.
I didn’t know I loved snow—frosty and sharp—even when peed on
by babies and puppies strolling at dusk.
Babies and puppies stir at dusk
when the crescent moon holds the sky with a spoon.
The crescent moon holds the sky with a spoon
cupping you and everything else.
Camille Newsom is a livestock farmer in Western Michigan. Her first chapbook of poetry, This Suffering and Scrumptious World, was published in July 2023. In her poems she observes our living and dying world through humor, grief, and a sprinkling of spite.
Header photo by yaalan, courtesy Shutterstock.
