FLUNG DROPS, FOG
Mother married The Farm and hated it.
The marriage.
The Farm.
Eventually she came to understand
that a thing is never
just one thing.
Poppies etched in shower glass
are flung drops
pollywogging down through fog.
And taillights headed out the drive
are relief,
but emptiness as well.
This longdeep house, milky with dream—
one lamplit star on a street among streets
named for constellations.
Collision of night trains
coupling,
uncoupling in the distance,
the honeymoon over
(they told you so)
before it had even begun.
A swab or strand
can tell us what we’re made of
but
makes no mention of who we really are.
And the mirror—
revealing what’s behind while we
stand there, dumbly,
looking ahead.
—from Rattle #81, Fall 2023
__________
Nancy Carol Moody: “An early instructor noted that I liked to inhabit the liminal space. I was so green that I had to look up ‘liminal,’ an assessment which turned out to be spot-on. I’ve spent a lifetime straddling interstices. Writing poetry keeps me from slipping through the cracks.” (web)
