Sometimes when it is not yet dark but darkening
and the moon is a thing to look for not
at and the bats are circling circling and my child
is counting counting in a loop hung up at eleven…
nine, ten, eleven, eleven, eleven…
I think oh isn’t that the map of the inside
of me a tormented loop and I can’t find my lane
Years ago a man I didn’t love quite enough wanted
to share an apartment but I wouldn’t and still
he kept being so patient and kind and he’d say
We just gotta find our lane, girl, gotta get in our groove,
but I knew all along we wouldn’t find it didn’t have it
then one bone-dry summer he helped me
install a ceiling fan without the super’s permission and
it went crossways, a bad circuit so to speak—turns out
you have to keep as good a record
of what used to be as you do what you want it to be
at least where electrical wires are concerned—
In the end, the switch meant for the fan fired up
the TV and the hall light and curiously also an appliance
in the unit next door
It was our last summer before the loop of that love tore off
broke free like a dog through a screen door
which did actually happen, poor dog, tiny wires pointing
like arrows in the right direction the direction
of away
the mesh blown open to the shape of his body
Tonight’s moon—where was I—like the unborn
there but not visible and all I can do is point
to where I think it would be and we look while counting
to eleven and he asks again where it is and I say,
Not sure, I’m not sure, but I think it follows a path
Tonight’s might be a new one, I say, meaning moon
Allison Seay is the recipient of fellowships from the Ruth Lilly Foundation, NEA, and Civitella Ranieri Foundation. She is the author of a book of poems, To See the Queen (Persea).
