Take the Moon

By now we know the moon is not a pocket for the stars,

nor a hammered silver disk pinned to the torn edge

of atmosphere. It’s not an open mouth of damp hope

for all the lonely, and it’s not lowering large and full

into a sunset moment like a true Buddha.

No. The moon is just a cheap lamp. Under its light,

I smash a joint in the orange sombrero ashtray

you brought me from San Diego, the only gift

I kept after our fourth and final breakup.

The moon’s sunken eyes are simply craters,

not a face of oh no, you’re gone. I realize now I may

never see you again, the soft haze of cigarette smoke

escaping your coffeed lips into the fog. And since

the moon is not you, oh no, I won’t ask it again

for peace. I will admit that sometimes, even when

it’s in one of its phases and mostly dark, I can still see

its pointless circular shape skulking behind Earth’s rude shadow.

Tracey Knapp's first full-length collection of poems, Mouth, won the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award and was published in 2015. Tracey has received awards and scholarships from La Romita School of Art in Terni, Italy, the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fund. Her work has appeared in Cream City Review, The Pinch, Best New Poets, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Five Points, New Ohio Review and elsewhere. ​Originally from Upstate New York, Tracey lives in the Bay Area of California. Her manuscript Swerve will be published with Pine Row Press early in 2026. 

More at: https://www.traceyknapp.com/