Moon view

It’s late afternoon and the sky is washed blue and gray.
A sundowning light dusts every angle
with its parting flow,
filling eyes tilted wide.

I can’t find the moon but it’s up there
smudged like a celestial thumbprint
for a forensic gazer.

I go around the house, front to back,
hunting this missing moon.
The dogs bark
thinking that something big is about to happen
and want me to explain.
they don’t care about the sky unless the geese
pronounce themselves overhead.

Now I see that glowing half-pill
pasted between the backyard swamp maple
and the other swamp maple,
which will look dark and jagged
in their sky sentry position
as this spackled sunshine peels away.

But for now, the moon's embedded in a blueness
caught sitting on a fence horizon.
A half-coin flipped up there
like something rubbed off the world,
like a ding on a car door,
like a scrape off someone’s cold, blue skin
showing this
white, bloodless spot.

In two days the moon will be full and plump
and bragging of itself -

Like that boy in 5th grade who played
the arcade games like a Zeus
gathering points as thunderbolts
tipped with jealousy.
The rest of us went home
to TV and bedtime
and knowing that his power
would fade and wane.