Moon's Cool Glow 1971 Poem by Terry Collett

Beyond that window
there's that world,
Yiska said,
she pointed
at the landscape,
snow was falling,
covering the tree tops
and the field,
where a tractor moved,
and gulls flew
down behind
as it moved on.

This world
is our world,
I said,
looking behind us
at the locked ward,
and patients sitting
or walking.

Yiska stood there
in her off pink
nightdress,
arms folded
across her breast,
a cigarette
between lips.

I stood next to her,
my nightgown
hanging loose.

This world
is our world,
she said.

I thought of the night
we had hidden
in the ETC room
on a narrow bed,
but the night nurse came
and found her
(I had hidden
from sight)
and moved her
back to her dormitory.

I returned
to the lounge
and sat staring
into the night sky
from the window,
taking in the stars
and the moon's
cool glow.