Tuesday Poem - By Moonlight by Jennifer Compton

By Moonlight

You didn’t know where Moscow is or who Mozart was.

I touched you and asked you to dance but your face collapsed.

As you slammed the pupils of your eyes shut you unleashed

a powerful one-note perfume, like a carapace, like a cicatrice.

I loved you. I remember you by moonlight, inaccurately,

with the white hair-slide of false hope curving like your shy smile.

I remember you by moonlight, accurately, suddenly barefoot,

suddenly adroit, as the white horse lay and groaned in his sleep.

The moon swayed, the pine trees,

on your boundary, like a premonition,

switched perspective, becoming foreground

with smooth, elusive panache. Trees can do that.

I’ll take my teeth out and put them in a glass beside the bed.

So I can’t bite. This is my last and best gift. Such sentiment!



Here's a poem from my book Barefoot published by Picaro Press.
http://www.picaropress.com/page1/page1.html
On its very last chance at the prizes it got the nod and got shortlisted for the John Bray Award at the Adelaide Festival. Oh well done, little book.
http://www.arts.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/2012_AFAL_Media_Release.pdf

If you want to read more Tuesday Poems click on the quill icon at the top of the page.