The Sky Tonight
by Martine Thomas
a stone worn dull / & worn again a decade of flattening / waves leaning down upon &
pulling away the surface with each washing / with each / two streaks of white paint or
no must be / clouds & / between / also worn & pocked / the moon / furling the shine of
my finger down / to skin-pink stripping away the print / the contours only visual now
the / fingertip gleaming / where do you find / tenderness I would like to ask / the trying
to speak almost / harder than / the speaking / just how do you keep / moving ahead
from day to / another when no one / lets you decide to move / that way / the taut
splitting / lip still unbroken & under / the tongue glossy but / straining with surface /
heat / shimmering stretching / if something so soft can / harden then so can anything if
/ something / this hard can break then / can anything / break if / to break / something
has to be hard enough to split & crack otherwise / it is a gentle separating only but /
breaking is not just / coming apart it / is first thin fracture / first an eye of stress rolling
back / first a tracing a scraped / line / nail in clay pressure / a pulling-in a / slivery
windpipe / even in the slimmest crack there is / air a hair of / space opening the lines of
contour on this map but / inside & / spreading / fingering outwards / lacy / first / just
the pressure the snaking lines but then the splitting the just barely cracked the coming
away from one another / this time without / permission because there is no / one to ask
permission from no one / to find to be / that person