Moon in my wineglass, floating on still red sea. A red deepened to near black in the dark of my backyard. But I know it’s red and a part of me puzzles over how the moon remains unstained: unblinking yellow eye that should long ago have turned plum but has not. Traffic light frozen mid-stride between green and red, go and stop; come on in and don’t you even think about it; last night and tonight.
Red wine is our drink, night our time. So I stand swallowed in the shadow of our night, and straight to the moon I raise our red wine. I drain the glass, the yellow light is gone. And good riddance: an intersection is no place to linger on a night like this, a caution light poor wisdom.
The yellow globe on the red sea is gone, but the moon is not. It continues to search things out. I see it has set quiet fire to the empty bulb of my glass. And I realize I have come upon a light that will not anytime soon turn to red and then back to green: that if I am to make it through this intersection I am going to have to really gun it, straight into yellow.
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(originally published in the online journal Mirrors)
