Sometimes I let it get
so far away
I have to call it back
like a child calls the moon
and imagine
that I live it
and breathe it.
The language died
with my grandparents.
I used to lie in bed at dawn
and hear my mother
call her mother,
the words rippling and definite
like soft whipping sheets
on the line,
the inflected question
always answering itself,
like a child’s cry of
Where’s the moon?
Knowing the answer
never stays in one place,
but is always coming, following.
Published in Midland Review, 1987