Viatica 1 Poem by Andrew Zawacki

alone and in advance
over an unknown grave:

the moon, the moonlight, side of the moon
that leans against a dark the dark leans on:

would last and it would last, and the sound
it makes would not be lasting sound

but only the noise a sun gives off
en route to something other than itself:

and the night would last, one side
of night, dissolving a language

that leans on the dark, on trees and men
who walk like trees, before before

as winter would last: winterstricken
a wayward moon, and gravity at long

at last, and how it would aggravate, how
dissolve, and how a tree resembling a detour

would overstay its unwelcome: noise before
the dark before, and men who walk

with eyes ajar, one side of their eyes
advancing alone, trees as doctrinaire

as dark, and men whose language
only the moon stands under:

who take this splintered otherwise
for a life that will not last