Day Drinking with the Crescent Moon and Striped Maple
by Marietta Brill
The moon wandered out again from its glamorous
room, a little bleary-eyed but relaxed. We all turned
sunward—me beside a striped maple, my nonbinary
woodland neighbor, and the sliver of moon floating
the sky’s midheaven—considering the firmament,
a word almost obsolete, but used on some occasions
for example when you want to come off sounding poetic.
We always thought it meant light, but were surprised
to learn its original meaning: heavenly roof. This led us
to think of earth and sky as a welcoming home for our unique
and essential elements—dust, bone, bark. I hope you can see
our conversation was not contentious, but mellow, reflective
and sweet: a brief time we shared drinking in the light.
Marietta Brill is the author of I Stay Inside (The Grenfell Press, 2024). Her poems, reviews, and essays can be found in Thrush Poetry Journal, wildness, Los Angeles Review, hyperallergic.com, The Brooklyn Rail, and Radar Poetry, among others. Her poetry has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net, and appears in Best New Poets 2024. She lives and writes in New York's Catskill Mountains.