The moon obscured the clouds. Pearl before
Pale miracles, long vapors higher than life
Would ever have allowed them to float, she
Eclipsed herself and remerged from the lost
Side of her face. I wanted to say I knew I was
Dreaming, but I didn't. Nothing so easy
An excuse as that. The rules had altered
And by altering had proven themselves to be
Only rules, after all, only rules. She floated
Nearer and nearer until the trees on the cliffs
Were also above and behind her. She was
A fairy now, a deity, a soul, a poem, another
In the innumerable lies made possible
By memory's discovery of narrative
And story's disrespect for the impossible.
Body sat on a rocker by the window clung
With mist. Daughter sprawled on a rug
With a window opening into the floor,
Looking down into another one of these
Worlds where moons can drift to ground.
The moon I had in mind drew closer.
Whatever there is in the experience of life
That refuses all wishes, all prayers, all
Attempts to rearrange its possibilities,
Call that the god that matters. The rest
Are only combinatorial systems of play
That can't ever answer the question of why
They are powerless, why there is power.
When I looked away from my imagination
There was an actual lizard, small, scaled,
Tilting its head to eyeball me from its perch
On the handle of a white wicker basket filled
With daughter's picture books and readers.
That a lizard would approach me at home
Did not amaze me. A lizard isn't the moon,
Although I couldn't imagine the reason.
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