Questions for the Moon

How old are you that you’re permitted to wander late
nights alone? You walk in circles, tongue-

tied, coyly dropping pallid, scanty scarves
into puddles. For whom?

Are you in love, or a pilgrim seeking absolution?
How can you run so fast without feet,

without getting away?
Large dark hands push you like a tasseled pillow deep

into Sky's sequined furniture.
Large dark hands cover your body, hiding half from view.

You live in purdah or disclose a hyperbole of undress.
Your appetite seems shifty like your shape.

Does your tumescence birth stars?
How else can you slim down to a fingernail clipping?

Who polishes your lacquered skin?
The irascible, jealous Day dissolves your substance

like salt the skin of snails,
but I commend your physicians: you regenerate.

I think it is Night who practices this laying on of hands,
for why else does Night extirpate

all light but yours? My own hands can't support
the mass of your weightless urgency.

My fingers get wet reaching into the pond of time
to retrieve even one lost, elusive strand of your hair.