Joshua Marie Wilkinson

“It’ll Get Worse Before It Gets Worse"

For Alexander Moysaenko

The black heart of the moon’s visible
through the trees from here.

Where are you?

I’m alone on the road
with a dead phone.

The birds are flapping overhead
but there’s not much light to be guided by.

If any horizon becomes visible enough to follow.

Forget the rain’s smear,
the chafe of fabric at the calf.

The money ran out. The diners are stuffed
and back for more.

Each terrible thing I said to the child
will get repeated hopefully as a joke.

And like language, these gestures, or a certain way of nodding
one’s head, it all eases in with less than a breath.

Forget the song’s words, the order of the band’s set tonight.

The black moon’s heart’s
got that sinister bent
and I want to get
touched at by the snakes.

One of the students in my class
used to go bear hunting with his two uncles.

They played recordings of distressed animals
to lure in tentative animals to kill.

This practice is illegal in many places.
Because it’s so very effective.

I split open the apple
and hand the good half to a child on the bus
nestled in under the arm of her sleeping mother.

Love from here is a long way to go.

Get on your bike and ride
through the lights.

Poetry (March 2019)”
― Joshua Marie Wilkinson