Moons

‘Uncle Tony died, remember the tall one who lifted me
thousands of feet and got caught under the ice somewhere?’

You said you were also looking at the moon, but it had
no face and only a shrugged countenance that made you cry.
Look up now, it’s part blenny reflection from the sea and flinty too
because it’s been up there a while and it doesn’t fuck about.
It gives you what you give it.

But you saw ragged black bags tattooed in winter branches.
It’s hard to come back from that, I said, you might need a friend
or a church to pray in for a while. So I’ll ring you and we can stay
silent for the dreams of tricycles and dark puddles.

Moons are buggers for being stand-offish, you need to smile
at them for hours before they’ll give you the time of day. It feels
stuck, the moon I mean, and tearful that so much has come
and gone. It feels a bit responsible for misery.

‘Are you still there?’

Brian James Leeson has been shortlisted twice for the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year (Galway) and shortlisted for The Fish International Short Story award. He has also been longlisted for both those competitions on two other occasions.

Brian has a completed novel manuscript that is being edited, but his first love is poetry and he hopes you will find his unique and interesting.