Airspace

CJ Evans

When the clouds sicken and molt,

when the flies grow and their drone

is as big as bombers, when the moon

 

has melted and dripped its ashes

into the upturned mouths of our

baby birds, most important

 

isn’t what happens next. More essential

than the outcome is the cause.

Something will be done about

 

the moon—they’ll tuck its insides

back into its body—but it’ll never

be the image in our perfect imagining

 

again. And the marred sky will stay

with me. It’s important, what happens

beneath, hidden by my inattention,

 

beyond the light, on the used moon’s

underbelly; in the remote order

within the coming swarm of flies.

CJ Evans is the author of A Penance and The Category of Outcast, and is the editor of Two Lines Press, the publishing program of the Center for the Art of Translation.