Matt Gilbert
Imitation Moon
The sculpture, Imitation Moon, is missing
from where it always stood in the fountain
surrounded by foxfire. From where it stood
at midnight on the farm sick with love,
the animate coyotes howling human screams
and like the statue eating their prey
by falling upon it. Where could it be
and why couldn’t you be there too,
standing guard over delicate sand castles
of living rooms; where you missed the lounging
of people cut out of magazines for collage
or capitalization, their best sides facing you.
Imagine following its drag of footprints
into the raw mountains, where sleep is
surrounded by lit candles and the candles
are never in the drawer where you left them.
Where the railway yard wears a crown of stags,
hearts clean, a hawk’s shadow crossing faces.
You could have been born anywhere, but here
is your first and only one; you know no other.
Here, where you stand along the garden,
the home, the hospital room of your forever,
still so as not to disturb the bees scenting
stood hairs on your arms, the greatest thing
a statue could ever say being that it once
fucked a small amount of roses, constantly.
