Moon at Half Past Noon

We begged for a sky unstitched from the seam of the earth,
To be water broken from the cup—
Spilled across the altar of stones,
Drinking the sun to a whisper of steam.

We cursed the fence as a thief of horizons,
Blinding us to the beckoning edge.
But the dark is a jaw, hung with too many stars,
And in the war of all against all,
Every throat is an invitation.

There is no shelter in a wind
That speaks from every direction at once.

So we gathere the fallen bones of the hill.
We mixe a mortar of salt and slow labor,
And lavitate to kneel within.

We score a line in the dust and chant:
Here, the wild shall not cross.
Here, a cry will be claimed.
Here, you are not a mist.
It is the oldest barter—
A galaxy for a gate.

The everywhere for an here—
We shear our own feathers, measuring
The worth of a single, sure branch.

And yes, the wall breeds a long, cold shade.
But behold the one who sways outside the covenant—
Who treads the crack between the drawn worlds.

He has the wheel of all latitudes to spin,
But no patch of ground that answers to his footfall.
He is free.
He is dust.
He is the zero.