New Moon

(after reading Keros & Lorna)

New Moon, You See me Standing Alone

Tick tock, tick tock. His heart, a sad little clock,
winding down again and again until the face was blank,

the hands, frozen. I wound and wound until
it’d never stop. Click-click-click: Perpetual emotion.

Hinges creaked when he left like his mouth opening,
then closing. The house betrayed him. I pretended

I’d been struck in the head. I pretended
I wasn’t listening. I pretended I wasn’t spinning.

Once started, there was no stopping
that momentum. See the witch pedaling

through the whirlwind? See the hag, flattened?
My soles curled into themselves like unborn

fetuses. I hacked my pigtails off. I pricked
the balloon. I killed my dog. I used blue

birds for target practice. I dug up that yellow
path and painted every brick black. But nothing

changes this. The tin man is a hollow son of a bitch.
The dark side of the moon will be my exit.