The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars

In that hour of boundless night when dark

tugs at me with its bustle and fuss

and the grass outside my window, gone

a deep blue, chirrs and clicks with crickets

and my thoughts flop and twitch

like fish in a galvanized bucket

and sweat soaks the sheets, collecting

in drops down my spine and behind my knees,

I like to leave my bones and flesh

lying in the bed while I roam the neighborhood,

only my being, the big idea of myself,

out for a stroll. I go undetected

by the sensor light in the side yard

and any dog or possum that crosses my path.

I go past the parked cars and clusters

of mailboxes, houses hunkered down

in the dark, an occasional light

whitening a single window. I go

without breath or breathlessness, I go

with forgiveness in my invisible heart

for the frail forms imposed upon

disorder: the painted stones a neighbor

has bordered his yard with, the black

plastic garbage bins

wheeled to the ends of driveways. I let

my mind forget its wrestling match

with the flesh, its urge to account for the burden

of the body by making of it an allegory.

I let whatever story I’m in

unfold its plot without interruption,

though chances are it is not a tale

about my welfare, and I cannot say

I comprehend what the least part of it

means, the bits of gravel scattered

on the blacktop glinting like stars, the battered

bottle cap glowing like a small fallen moon—

above, the actual moon, the actual stars

shining like nothing but themselves.