for Bliss
You insist there must be two
moons since day-before-yesterday
we saw one to the east above the little yellow
house and today one hangs, more swollen,
over the horse pasture. You are so
sure, your memory lit by blue-gray
eyes alone, unblinkered by knowledge
of how the world revolves on an axis
and the moon is nothing but a shadow fool
culled and quartered. You laugh
in your clover-picking way, counting green
balloons tethered to a stem. Your breath
frees dandy lions of a roadside jungle,
snowy soul from a golden mane.
At only three-and-a-half, you have mastered
the dash and stroll of story.
I let you keep your two moons
which day after tomorrow may be three.
Perhaps no moon-views are ever
the same. Of all my children and children’s
children, you were the first to speak.
The only one who claimed the moon and knew
there were many, maybe millions. Your faith
makes me brave, as night overtakes us,
knowing that when I am shadow