He is not among the exultant
twenty-eight pointing up
and back. Nor in the two figures
standing on air. He appears
nowhere in the hemp or among
the sharp-edged shadows
of the phosphorescent flash; not there
in the washed grays and whites
of shirts and eyes, not in
the light-slammed leaves,
the dark lines of the limbs, the tree itself
or behind the tree, inside the den, within the snake
asleep; not on the wide black river
whipped with light from the rooms
opposite, nor in the clapboard church ten fields
over, or in the thousand pine points piercing the fog
above the sea. The face of the moon whispers
No, not here. Farther out, the ancient dusts of
galaxies turn and look into their twinkles:
Not here, they say
not here.


Published in Sky Island Journal, #10, Fall, 2019