Back to Issue 10
by Laura Reece Hogan
Sometimes only a hand, your hand, comes between us
and death. Moses, who begged to see, you shielded from
your passing glory; you loved too much to say no. Can you
feel our nearest passing by of you, the bride languishing
for the light of you for the sight of you, setting in her nothing?
Sometimes you put the whole far moon between us
just to return her love sometimes in a new moon invisible
she feels the blister of your passion a presence
hidden in the gloss of absence. Sometimes at apogee,
the farthest point when earth and moon and sun you align
in lunar node you shelter her crown the daytime night sky
with a marriage of fire and not never and always;
dark disk steadily bites into bright eclipses the eyes.
Except for the longing there is no prayer for this.
Sometimes only a hand your hand holds the moon
just so pours molten fire into perfect annulus
one minute twenty second slender, blazing ring of promise
for your dearest love, dearest passing shadow.
Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction spiritual theology book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). She has contributed to First Things and EcoTheo Review. www.laurareecehogan.com