Mystic Affection
when the light shifted over my face, I woke to found you
wandering the hall and whispered, It was the moon,
because you were confused by dreams. Come back to bed,
where we drifted to our separate darknesses, while our child,
who has begun to acquaint the painted orbs and crescents
in her thick-paged books with their bright referent,
slept in her crib across the hall. Moon, moon! she cries
when she spots it through a window. Searching the sky
in daylight, she sees against the blue its slight print.
When it hides behind clouds, she opens books, finds it
gracing brush-stroked skies or masquerading
as the gray underside of a mallard duck’s wing.
She points to the roused bird, O moon, then kisses the page.
—Shanna Powlus Wheeler
From Evensong for Shadows: Poems, Resource Publications, © Copyright 2018 . Used with permission of the poet. Photo by Szabo Viktor, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.
so sweet