above me is the moon and Mars and scalloped dictionaries
of cloud falling open to the page obsolete
lives on. Like a Jazzercise class with one student
and a militant instructor, that’s how the moon
makes Mars work its lower abs. And the cold
is gorgeous and tender, like you, and mean
and abrasive, like you, and you are like
the moon, making me work my abs to beats
I would never call jazz—funk maybe, but no way is that
Monk or John or Mingus or Miles,
no way are you the jazz of a moon
that looks like a Super Deluxe Edition reissue
of your favorite album from twenty years ago
that anymore grates the ear, but whose name still tugs
the gut like a bag of bloodied lab mice.
The film the moon projects is black and white.
The moon doesn’t belong to the earth.
We have moved beyond moon, beyond Mars, beyond
outside. Nature is obsolete,
and so I embrace it as I have embraced your obsolete
poetry. The only light on in my backyard
is the moon. The clouds are dictionaries with no words
worth repeating. I look into the window of the house and see the light
of a screen, see a face bathing in that light
that is the light of knowing,
other faces are bathing in the same light, the holy light
of Like. I feel a mad
need to update my urge to dig
out the saxophone I haven’t blown
in a decade, finger its keys, let loose a few
crow squawks. How old it has gotten. I am already
obsolete technology, my synapses firing
for all the wrong ancient reasons. I will go
inside and sit before the light of the world, but first
let me stand beneath the light of what
we no longer know and murmur O Moon, Glory.

***

David Brennan’s recent work has appeared in Action Yes, PANK, Everyday Genius, Strange Machine, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collection The White Visitation (BlazeVOX, 2010) and the chapbook The Family Flamboyant (Brickhouse Books, 2010). He lives in Virginia, in the shadow of the Massanutten.

Read more of his work and others’ in HFR 1.2, now available on Kindle, and coming soon to Nook! Or, please consider subscribing.