(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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