Moonlight Walk
The moon, a perfect half circle. No other stars
visible except Jupiter in the southern sky, and star lights
from the curtained houses with shadows moving
across a blue-shaded room. What story [happy]
| [boring] | [frozen] is going on when the moon is listening?
So do you, the lonely walker, listen [without a mask]
among the silhouette of trees. The continuous
drumming of cicadas, the mooing of a bull-
frog, fill the quiet, warm twilight. Ardor, you think
[yearn]. There is one body [long ignored]
you experience now—whose steps, whose sense
of moon touch, whose flow, whose satisfaction of being
occupied [noticed] [loved]. On the open road, the walker
continues with the moon, and the latest and last lover.
visible except Jupiter in the southern sky, and star lights
from the curtained houses with shadows moving
across a blue-shaded room. What story [happy]
| [boring] | [frozen] is going on when the moon is listening?
So do you, the lonely walker, listen [without a mask]
among the silhouette of trees. The continuous
drumming of cicadas, the mooing of a bull-
frog, fill the quiet, warm twilight. Ardor, you think
[yearn]. There is one body [long ignored]
you experience now—whose steps, whose sense
of moon touch, whose flow, whose satisfaction of being
occupied [noticed] [loved]. On the open road, the walker
continues with the moon, and the latest and last lover.
Sept / Oct 2023
Xiaoly Li is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant (2022) recipient. Her poetry collection, Every Single Bird Rising (FutureCycle Press, April 2023), was a Zone 3 Press Book Award finalist. Her poetry is forthcoming, featured, or anthologized in Salamander, Saranac Review, Spillway, PANK, Chautauqua, Rhino, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for: Best New Poets, twice a Pushcart Prize, three times Best of the Net.
Art: Cam Pietralunga. Earth Moving Heavy Equipment for Construction. Acrylic on canvas.