The Moon the Only Witness
by Joseph Kerschbaum


I will use your fingernails. Your mouth is too obvious and doesn’t
provide the hidden entrance I want to steal into tonight. This is how I want
to find my way inside you—under the cover of darkness, seeking refuge
from razor winds, an arctic world that has strangled itself to death. The thick
fog of our radiating bodies under this heavy quilt has been the farthest
I could venture for the longest time. I want to

abscond in this fog, the moon the only witness. I trust
the moon to stay quiet. As snow falls, the world slows
to a crawl, a hungry dog who gives in to the asperity of winter
and lays down to watch the streetlights fill

with tiny angels. The world outside is hostile.
I cannot get away from it enough. I will
unhinge your fingernail like a cellar door and close it behind me,
curl up inside your throat like any subterranean animal. I will feel safe
as an unborn child who is unaware such a frozen wasteland awaits him.






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