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Moving Day // Steven Klepetar

We’re in the process of swinging across the moon,
of stretching over continents.
We’re having our pool filled with salt.
Our neighbors watch through this early dusk
huddled on the walk, chilled
and breathing through their bright masks.
They seem suspicious of our armored car.
They don’t seem to like the arias our singing
dog wails as streetlights flicker on. We want
to wave, but it seems a provocation, a new way
of screeching against their ears.
We’re in the process of writing a new script
for our eyes, something less eager, less hopefully
old. We never wanted to be Santa Claus.
The daemon Love was more our style, winged
and weathered, face like a catcher’s mask.
We are on our own, adrift in the space between
moves. Everything we own carries the scent
of post office or bank. Tonight we will eat
al fresco and taste cobblestones
and heels of thick bread, spicy olive oil, clatter
of cat’s claws and the pull of lovely hands.
We’ve left it all until sun drags over bleeding clouds.
We’ve pulled down the iron gate, pasted our new
names above the office door. You can’t believe
the work involved. All night we haul old dreams
down, watch as they flicker and bend in the bulb’s
bare basement light. Like wet wool, they weigh
plenty and retain the smell of sheep. Our hands
are scratched, our new faces in this stabbing mirror
startled and strange. Last week we all dressed
like sand, we scrabbled like rats in the wind.
We’re in the process of holding hands, of joining our
flesh through the black flames of night.
Please excuse the mess, we are in the process
of going home, of finding the last words we will ever need.