The Cancer is the Moonlight.

Moonlight

I walked in moonlight,
Holding the check tightly in the palm of my
Hand.
Holding the check in front of me like a shield.

His best friend has cancer.
The doctor says it is a disease.
The words aren’t the ones people want
To hear.

He was not depressed,
He told himself.
He was not depressed.

He played checkers
In
His den,
Then moved to the attic.

Light spilled in through the window onto the
Floor.
The floor was polished.
Glittered until it shone.

He was not depressed about anything.
He was not depressed about the way the
Light shone, stiller than the moon at night,
Stiller than the cold and the dark and
The attics waking in walls.

The cold is in his bones.
The cold drifts through him.
He is shadowed at the heart of it all,
Shadowed at the heart that drifts and
Fades and the feathers come falling

Down, down-
Down into the nothingness that
Is everything.
Into the nothingness that is new.
Newer than what we believe is to be seen.

In the dusk of anything,
We strive for Alaskan wilderness-
We strive for the wind that moans,
And hearts beat at glass doors.
We open them and shut them,
Again and again,
Whispering words your mother can’t
Understand.
We speak languages.