THE OLD MOON IN THE NEW MOON’S ARMS by Anna Westbrook
THE OLD MOON IN THE NEW MOON’S ARMS
did not ask for hail, nor hustle. She came
as a mare’s mouth
to a cupped palm
in a flat, bright field, under
an unbridled sky –
came like the snick
of an oiled gate, so that even the rough
felt honeyed
handed down.
Those sideways eyes, the way she drives
one arm on you the other
out a window flapping. Indicator’s
broken.
She handles corners cocksure
knows how to speed
and when to push
hard, almost too hard, not quite.
Your cunt heats like the car’s
coiled stamp
press-in electric red to light her smokes.
She took you
to the night-time beach and pointed
out to sea: that is how you break.
Each a further daring. Is this? May I?
You know the price of trust know you are out
on a limb, on its limit. A spit of road
the furthest
disbelief. You’re a basket
of apples with a bite
out of each.
She takes them all, astounded.
Your fingers in her lap
so far from city and from shore.
Shared breath, a diver’s loop
emergency.
It is over – a few hours, in your head
and you think oh well, what an unexpected
nice time but it isn’t
and she’s in
the driver’s seat of your car beside you
turning on your wipers
when she wants to go left.
You only see the deep-welled staircase
in her lisping, half-clothed smile.
You need to not look at her
because there is limit to her
and how can you coax more
from a bottle
called adventure
without thinning the contents
stepping on the charge?
She is the glass that wants
and wants and wants then
can’t accept.
You talk and something kicks
your breastbone
what she says about an ex:
We didn’t get to gently offer
our lives back to one another.
And all these years you saw her but didn’t
so why now do you belong
in all this softness when
you worry about muchness, about being too much
but she says yes, and again
by the roadside, yes
again.
The thicket over Melbourne:
It’s like mountains
a low crouch
then the X-ray of lightning.
Cloud storms over
flooded landscape
appetite for such abundance
the detail of her neck.
The night tilts back
and there is earthshine on the moon.
