That scoundrel, man—he gets used to everything.

                                                   Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

Maybe the moon is full and bright

and earth reveals bones,

shallow graves in a shallow war.

Maybe the moon’s light plays

with the meek fire of men cramped

beneath a bridge in Ohio

as they watch gray chunks of ice

float down the river. Will the sky

smile when one slips beneath

the black water? He is not even

a statistic, deleted long ago

from government lists.

Maybe the moon glints off

Air Force One at thirty-five

thousand feet, an aluminum shining

star and the F-16 chase pilots

are impressed, reassured that

their CIC is favored by heaven.  

There are no owls descending

under the moon light. And who 

would watch their wings spread

and fold? A luckless rodent?

A run-away-teen exhausted

beneath some tree at the edge

of an unfamiliar field? Somewhere

a sleepless poet, maybe even

you, walks away the night voices.

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Gary Metras has published 14 collections of poetry, most recently, Francis d'Assisi 2008 (Finishing Line Press, 2008). He has poems in recent issues of Pacific Coast Journal, Poetry East, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He is editor and letterpress printer of Adastra Press in Easthampton, Massachusetts.