A waning moon skulks behind smudges of ashen clouds,
waiting to fold into the edges of our eyes and deep into the wounds of trees (thin as papyrus, but for a craning jaw sprouting cannibal teeth up and through gum flesh, timeworn and lacking).

It is like waiting
for a paused news bulletin to begin/
power to be reconnected/
bills to be paid/
wet laundry to air/
velvet to be worn to the party (if you get there).

We portion time and ration the night. But still the moon rises, just as a knot of
morning mist unravels for a tune to rise and roll across the air without that band of concrete coloured fog.