(Aron Visuals/Unsplash)

The full moon rises
at the top of our street,
a gradual discovery
made together
settling in.

Each month the moon
floods the boards
of our bedroom
floor with silver,
bestows a simple chair
with onyx shadows.

For thirty years
we’ve been moon-proud:
a glow within,
until his illness.
Now we are hushed, thin—
hoping for one more
fullness
together again.

Nikia Leopold’s poems have appeared in various magazines, including the American Scholar, Commonweal, Measure, the Southern Review, and Poetry. Her chapbook Small Pleasures won the 2012 Blue Light Press contest, and her second book, Healing with Shadows, was published in January 2021. She lives in Ruxton, Maryland.

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Published in the May 2021 issue: View Contents
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