Then the full
moon rose
& filled the
windows

and I put my arm
around you
as you slept
& I slept

alongside you
for a while.
All around us the world.
And in it us

neither large nor
small. This
is the poem
where the moonlight

will whiten everything & I
will let go
of the world
as it was

once. It was probably
never that way
I will think,
but its cage

wasn’t visible then
& we thought we were
free, we thought
there was history

in the world—
but it was an
illusion, wasn’t it, it
must have been,

because otherwise how
could it have
disappeared
so suddenly.

But the whiteness
is whitening the panes
beyond us
ever brighter

as you sleep,
& your sleep, yr kind
sleep says no, no,
it is all true here

in the poem,
says I won’t tell you
there’s freedom
anywhere

but look
at what you hold
in your arms
for free

as the moon
rises
over the fields
without us,

as it rises in the eyes

of all the watchers
in their dens
on their
branches in the hollows of

what were once
the sun-warmed furrows
farmers cut
into the earth

when there were farmers.

This is drawn from “Killing Spree.”