"paper moon nocturne"

paper moon nocturne

white picket fence without belief attached, mere fact in this 
landscape with parked cars, three stars just past reach of
city lights between backlit clouds blowing north-south

so I asked you where the moon will come up—“above
the weeping cherry”—just now weeping without benefit of
blossoms in an evening fraught with gusts

as if weather were changing into something it’s not—camellia
buds clenched into green fists, bamboo on Mississippi Ave
green all winter, lissome, long-haired, green leaves

beyond belief, groaning bus at the light on Skidmore—me
walking into the future past that sushi place we ate ramen an-
other winter evening the fish tank brimming orange & blue, in-

tangible in yellow light—walking into: orange lights a-
long river's indigo current, streetlight’s glow above an alley
the moon assumes its place beyond

A.K. Barkley
© 2014

Image is from Wiki Commons: Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge - Hirgoshige (from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo); published 1856-1859. Public domain