I Check the Moon By Caleb Nichols

I Check the Moon | By Caleb Nichols

Lulu writes me
into a poem,
as if I were the moon,
messages it to me.

Night spiders down,
glides along,
spins Santa Anas,
whips the bleach
blonde hills,
the frosted tips of
late spring.

I dream drift back
down the tracks.
A teal discourse
on a rain rusted rail car
reads, momma didn’t raise
no ho and, more mysteriously,

                  c     
                c o r n
                  b.

Hampsey emails a dream:

                1976
                East Berlin…
                it is night and i am trying to figure
                the street signs up on a low stage,
                next to a dingy curtain,
                you are singing by yourself

Noah texts a new song,
sings like seraphim,
an ode to kissing cousins
then says check the moon.
I pocket my phone.
I check the moon:

                the moon is full—
                slung low
                above the suburban frame
                of trees and children howling.

Morning worms out,
casts threads,
canvases the void.

My eight legs spin
silk, weave a God’s
eye, a dream catcher.
The pitch of these dreams,

                Grandpa’s booming bass note;
                Grandma’s dulcimer lull; sounds
                bounced off yellow stucco; afternoon light

shells I hermit into,

found texts,
tide pools
spilling over,

lunar surfaces
mirroring
moon phases,

veiled in swell, then
revealed in ebb—
and that’s when

the gulls wing in,
to break me out
of my wonder.