Moons

Come and look at yourself in the moon, an old voice said, and the moon
was the mirror’s golden vessel, standing tall before me, approaching
from the wall. With iridescent edges and timbers older
than the voice of that aunt who always swayed and smiled.

The mirror left.
Men took it down and covered it with cardboard and paper,
then removed it from the living room. The house had a long hallway.
That moon left. It was definitive.
Because my aunt had already died, and I no longer remember how.
Remote images of furniture departing, some relative asking
for a vase, a crystal to remember her by. That’s it.
And now all of it is dim and mute. The dust of memory.

And now the moon is only the one in the sky, forever.
Beyond my dreams and memories. Beyond this body that
is no longer a boy’s body.
The slow moon, remote.
In the coldest terms, it’s a different use of voice. Words
age, too; this is trivial.
But language lives, plays, and there’s nothing nostalgic
about a chance metaphor that turns the moon, the one in the sky,
into a mirror once more:
Lagoon of Rains, Ocean of Storms, Sea of Serenity
where from closer up
there’s only dust and silence. Aerial silver, the moon
of distant silence.
The one in the evening sky.