Poetry |

“Map, Lewiston, Idaho, June, 1933” and “Please Bring A Moon”

Map, Lewiston, Idaho, June, 1933

 

Here there are friends

here the locks are easily opened

here nobody lives

here there is lots of money, but carefully hidden

 

here lives a woman alone

 

here people regard gypsies as thieves

here live greedy people, but easy to steal from

here lives a man with a bad temper

here live scared people

 

but here lives a kind woman

 

here there is nothing of any interest

here there is nothing to be afraid of, go on begging

here they demand that you work hard

here are watchful neighbors

 

here lives only a mistress with maids

 

here are dogs in the yard, watch out!

here people tell you to go to hell

here they’ll rough you up

here they take revenge

 

here they’ll take care of you if you are ill

 

here they give no money but one may get food

here they give you food if you work

here they give only if you are ill

here they give nothing

 

and here you can get whatever you want.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Please Bring a Moon

 

Kate loves the moon. When I carry her, she leans her head back and tilts up her chin
to watch. I see its reflection in her perfect new eyes. She holds her hand up, in greeting.

This reminds me how the moon’s its own cocoon, how hard it is to explain, how the world
would manage perfectly fine without it and its changes, its hiding in clouds, its two-week

disappearances, awfully long when you’re a year old. I used to count each new crescent
as a step closer to her birth. I used to know where End of the Moon Lane is. I once saw

two owls flying across the field on the full moon, and a few minutes later, a feather
floating down from the sky. I caught it. I will tell her, but would she tell her child?

What would a baby moon be called, moonlet, moonling, and how would it hatch?
Will she watch it from the back seat, a constant with trees passing through like thread?

Contributor
Tina Kelley

Tina Kelley’s fourth poetry collection, Rise Wildly, is forthcoming in October 2020 from CavanKerry Press. She co-authored Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope, and shared in a staff Pulitzer covering 9/11 at The New York Times.

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