the moon rose seven times tonight

butternut skinned in daylight's remnant

behind pastured knolls escaping the Pacific

she unwrapped gossamer blankets—

fresh and unsubdued.

vanishing soon after in the recent dark

she gave back the night until her tooth

tore through a gumline of glowtipped totara

filaments silhouetted before her complete

self-blanketing conjured the milky rest

of a cataract lens.

next through banksia and kōwhai

higher up the hillside, regolith's throne

goth sauntered through thickening whips

and hedgehog cones, sparse bright-lit

bone canopies.

that trilogy, a precursor to four

cloud-heralded arrivals, new curtains,

new lights for the celebrity backstage

donning whiter gowns, cinching whalebone

between ovations, scrubbed polished

then stripped bare for spotlit encore—

driftwood bright.

each reoccluding enough to wonder if

all would slump below grim folds, drizzling

in the muffled territory of local clouds.

she teased the darkness—

before raining moonfire down.

wait wait, my wife flourished out of sight:

I'll do it again but more glamorous—

her ivory shawl billows back into view.

the first sharing did not fall short but,

let's indulge in arriving seven times

to the rolling butterwarm blush

of turning points in the sense that

we could be turning around and around

not lost but twirling.