“Blue Moon and Bright Mars” by Sandy Coomer
Now that I have you back,
even your early morning footsteps
seem blessed, and eggs scrambling
in the skillet, the aroma of relief.
I watch you from the doorway,
your clothes hanging on your body,
your hollow face busy in thought, until
your eyes lift and burn me with light.
We learned how to say love without words
when the hospital nights sank their teeth in
and the days chewed slowly on your flesh.
We learned how to say pain,
even the desperate kind that leaves you
rolled out flat and dirty.
And though we haven’t yet admitted this –
maybe we never will – we learned
that fear sits in a sacred chamber
and uncoils the minutes of our lives
like the skin of an apple
peeling off in one long red helix.
Last night, we sat on the back porch
and watched the moon – a rare blue moon,
twice full in a month – curve
above Mars, low and bright.
To say your eyes are like stars is trite, I know,
but when I look in them I feel weightless,
moving fast across our lives,
the dizzying spin of all our plans bundled
like atoms in a molecule, barely contained.
We continue our habits, glad
for the repetition, the safety of the familiar.
Everything is the same,
except when you hold me and I feel the tremor
in your arms transparent as breath. It is no good now
to use words to explain ourselves, so we sit down
for breakfast. We eat our fill.
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Sandy Coomer Artist Statement:
Sandy Coomer is a poet, mixed media artist, and endurance athlete. Her poetry has been published in
numerous journals and she is the author of two poetry collections: Continuum (Finishing Line Press) and
The Presence of Absence (2014 Janice Keck Literary Award Winner). Her third collection, Rivers Within
Us, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. Sandy creates mixed media art on canvas and on the covers of
blank journals, intended to inspire others to write down their dreams concretely and live their creative
lives with abundance and joy. www.sandycoomer.com
