If I were ever to birth a moon cratered and glossed
carefully over like stone rippling the mirrored surface of sea
his light thrown along the asphalt under a quiet night
you know the one where quiet never comes
quickly enough but carries his wailing right below the wind
where night is just an antonym for boy
how one returns the other may not and telling isn’t it
how the root of night is absence or ignorance
from the German nahts not unlike that which aches
to be unraveled under a moon tangled in the indigo
of otherworldliness say a womb say a sky or even a sea
awash in oceanic divers with last wish to touch
the mid-Atlantic with their bare hands
ripping from their bones their wet black suits and jump ungloved
unmasked every inhale a protest rejoicing
in the burning current then in all honesty I’d too bury him
as soon as I could bear beneath a blanket
of stardust where blue and only blue can touch him the light
taking millions upon millions of miles
to reach the ground where he dies long after I do
Aris Kian is an inaugural member of CoogSlam, 2019’s 4th in the nation collegiate poetry slam team. She is ranked #10 in the 2020 Women of the World Poetry Slam. Her work is published in Underground Journal, Panoplyzine, Defunkt Magazine and Write About Now. She is an Emerging Writers Fellow and facilitates poetry workshops for Writers in the Schools. She received her BA in English and is currently an MFA candidate for Creative Writing at the University of Houston.
Houston Review Of Books 