FORREST PRITCHARD

These scattered prairie clouds—
Such blush! Oh, the pink
Brightening of autumn, drought-
Dusted leaves muddy with September

Rain. Do you remember the rain?
It pours sometimes, doesn’t it—
Always in the past. Always in
Some brighter moment which is

Not now—I’ve heard you grumble!
Look. The greening pastures
Engorged with sweetness. Look.
The final blue moon—that is, until

The next blue moon. Or the super moon.
Distractions to occupy an evening.
Look! The leaping brook was a trickle
But now it leaps once more, decorated

With opalescent minnows and goldenrod
Pollen. Where does it go, oxbowed
Narration, those long-winding stories
We all adore. And when, reflecting,

We see our own faces in the pink-
Clouded water, we recite: “Yes! I
Remember that day. I do! Five years
Ago like yesterday—but I can’t precisely

Recall what we said, or what she was
Wearing. If I could go back I’d breathe so
Deeply, inhaling all of autumn, never
Displacing a cinnamon fleck of her hazel eyes.”

I’ve been walking a trail of feathers
For days along the black, nettled canal

Rich with blue fishes, flashing damsel
Flies, umbelliferous elder surrendering

Rhubarb stalks to the flat feet of swans.
How long have I been walking? Not far,

Just as long as I can recall. Everyone knows
Our memory is the most unreliable

Witness of all—Blue fishes in rise forms,
Waking, breaking the surface to reveal mottled

Green backs. How long have I breathed
The lacy air, creamed with thick perfumes?

Feathers fall from a gray cloudless sky,
Adorning the path until a girl collects them,

Peacocking a plain post. She knows how to walk
Too, how to breathe, allowing herself to be filled

With space, noting the green fishes of the canal,
The blood red swans, hopping yellow toads flung

Joyfully across the path, and her blue-haired dog
Bounding, framed against an iridescent lemon sky.

I hung the moon on a nail
In my kitchen, a blank space
Of sky or wall or whatever
You believe the horizon to be—

Most people believe it’s something.
I believed there was a nail there
And the painting concurred, strung
Soon and perfectly too high,

Much like the moon often is.
My algorithm insists I love Clair
De Lune, and I agree—Debussy’s
Sighing notes sleepwalking

Through the bluetooth speakers
You know the ones I mean,
The familiar sound the moon makes
As it rises through the window,

Over the rooftops, beyond the gauze
Of clouds before settling, on a wire,
On a nail, in a kitchen, dripping
Eternity against eggshell emptiness.