Epitaph
He stole forsythia.
He lived for love.
He never got caught.
Copyright © 2014 Jim Moore. This poem originally appeared in Underground: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 2014). Used with permission of the author.
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Love in the Ruins
1
I remember my mother toward the end,
folding the tablecloth after dinner
so carefully,
as if it were the flag
of a country that no longer existed,
but once had ruled the world.
2
7 A.M. and the barefoot man
2018
I Call It Joy
this being unnoticed. Sitting like this
next to the stone lamb outside the Cathedral.
My lost soul, which prefers the stone lamb
to the living God. Prefers these deep shadows
to the summer day. The way he took me
all those years ago, shattered me
so that fifty-seven years later, I might sit
next to the smoothness of this stone lamb,
know the stone joy of being unnoticed.
People go in the Cathedral all day long,
visiting their God on their knees.2018
Diptych: My Bracelet
1
Before going to bed I take off my bracelet. It is meant to protect me. A dancer gave it to me: for decades she has known sorrow and beauty. Beloveds have come and gone. Mountains and forest fires. Lives that might have lived through her, but didn’t. Lives that do still live through her. I go to sleep, protected by her love, even though now my wrist is naked. All of you who have lived with the mysterious succession of love and grief, of dogs and dances, of yoga and tears: all of you will know just what I mean.
2
2015