Tidalwave Making Moon

Decades lived by finding hope 
on the cliff.
The cliff remains but hope 
is gone and mercy
has taken its place, donning a revised skin.
Surrender is not gentle or shallow, 
does not come with a sigh but overtakes with a shudder,
a whimper, sleep.
I am branded as mush like the crawling thing 
that early summer created – clear and stripped of lasting form.
Corners blend then curve and curve again to make a sphere.
Searching is only born from blindness. Perfect vision comes
with the maiming of everything 
non-essential, when the only
essential is love and being alive to excite clouds into paintings.
The bountiful children 
clutter on the doorstep, have
one bed, two pillows for their many nesting heads. 
This they have, thin soup and no winter boots – 
each one giggling freely, sweetly at the first falling snow.
Branches are lizards I have broken before. Their thorny teeth,
a blessing to swell the stream 
of immediacy, covering me completely with oily holy sludge 
I have been trying for weeks 
to wipe from my nostrils.
Rubbing clean like singing – crescendo, couplet, and just breathing in 
as part of the song, holding breath, building in the stillness. 
Slowing awakening from the pressure, containing force 
in a tight-tongue swirl, movement starts, and cannot stop, 
until it beats out a haunting, lingering completion. 
What is left is the chilling joy 
of mutual mercy 
needed, received. Blood 
becomes a false dream, 
and the moon, and money too.

Allison Grayhurst
Toronto, Canada
www.allisongrayhurst.com