Today's poem is Moon Review at the Emergency Vet by Jefferson Navicky. It is read by Julia Bouwsma.
Moon Review at the Emergency Vet
I’m wearing the moon’s white suit as I sit
beneath its hole, the clouds
a curtain for its one bald eye. A gurney
arrives, the sheet a curtain over
the night’s first body.
A good white suit reflects duty
without a hint of dust that must,
I assume, accrue on the dead.
A miracle never happens
when I want it to. Whatever happens
seems to become a catastrophe I must
ask the moon to eat. This dark sea
of pavement under street light’s glow
possesses sheen reflection logic.
Icarus knows what I’m talking about.
The television in the lobby quietly
plays a medical drama I can’t
watch because a small being is dying
in the arms of a woman beneath
the TV. So I watch the moon
instead, its slow bit of advice
a masterpiece burned white hot
into my inner eye where I keep
tonight’s tally of who won’t make it,
who might. A slow-moving mosquito
goes in for the kill. Leftover
strawberry tops assert their blood
relations atop my white suit to
blood stains who show a stark refusal.
They leave me in a room to wait
where I can’t see the moon. Slow jazz
played soft to keep me sane. It’s lonely
in limbo. I check myself for light.