Heather Christle

MOSS DOES NOT LOVE OTHER MOSS

It isn’t dark yet though it should be dark
The grass is bright you can still see it
and warm and you can smell it and
elsewhere two people hold one another close
in a darkness they have created They can feel
their insides turning to olive oil and late late
afternoon light It’s hard not to be them
to be like a fallen off piece of the mountain
to have traveled so far and still without darkness
To see the whole system the houses
pulling up from the soil and to want
the stars out now To want the stars out now
like a linen bag over the head

Heather Christle’s debut poetry collection, The Difficult Farm, was published by Octopus Books in 2009. She lives in Atlanta and is Emory University’s Creative Writing Fellow in poetry. More information is at heatherchristle.blogspot.com.