Conscience
You are five times the cupping darkness.
I am five times the thing reached for.
Emptied.
Reached for again.
The fifth time you told me you didn’t.
The second time you did.
Double the question, then nearly triple it.
That’s how long it’s been.
I offer you fig, sorghum, nightshade berry.
You radiate and emit.
Take my church and offer me
one-fifth of two dead planets, falling.
We lived more lives than just these two--
First we were thoughts.
Then Andromeda.
Then tongues.
The fifth time we were all paws.
Now, waxwings maybe.
Or crows.
Night-Song
A full moonset on the horizon
of a dark and tideless lake.
The water pulled gently.
The water gently pulled the full moon
not down but into. And under.
Just below the dark surface
stayed the soft light of the moon.
Just below the surface
the moon became a heron.
From just below the surface
the heron pushed through.
She rode the tideless water.
Her hands were not webbed. I was there.
I saw her. She turned to me
and showed me her wingspan.
It was harpsong.
It played three times
and then I swallowed her.
My body was a dark and tideless pool.
It pulled gently.
Not down but into.
It became light.
Gentle like the wingspan of the moon.
Inside my light, a pair of hands
made shadows shaped like herons
On the horizon of a tideless moon.
You are five times the cupping darkness.
I am five times the thing reached for.
Emptied.
Reached for again.
The fifth time you told me you didn’t.
The second time you did.
Double the question, then nearly triple it.
That’s how long it’s been.
I offer you fig, sorghum, nightshade berry.
You radiate and emit.
Take my church and offer me
one-fifth of two dead planets, falling.
We lived more lives than just these two--
First we were thoughts.
Then Andromeda.
Then tongues.
The fifth time we were all paws.
Now, waxwings maybe.
Or crows.
Night-Song
A full moonset on the horizon
of a dark and tideless lake.
The water pulled gently.
The water gently pulled the full moon
not down but into. And under.
Just below the dark surface
stayed the soft light of the moon.
Just below the surface
the moon became a heron.
From just below the surface
the heron pushed through.
She rode the tideless water.
Her hands were not webbed. I was there.
I saw her. She turned to me
and showed me her wingspan.
It was harpsong.
It played three times
and then I swallowed her.
My body was a dark and tideless pool.
It pulled gently.
Not down but into.
It became light.
Gentle like the wingspan of the moon.
Inside my light, a pair of hands
made shadows shaped like herons
On the horizon of a tideless moon.
Tamra Carraher is the curator/editor of Alexandria Quarterly. Tamra received a BFA from Goddard College and an MFA from New England College and has published three books for children, PICTURE/BOOK, Bluefish Haiku and Alphabet Book. Her work has appeared in Talisman, The Penn Review, SPANK the CARP, Toe Good Poetry, Burningword Literary Journal and Literary Mama. She is also an Associate Editor for Naugatuck River Review.