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Jonathan Moya Mar 2020
It’s hard to find an even house:

foundations settle at creation,
doors will sag from slamming,

tiles will chip from drop pots,
careless feet scuffing along,  
days when they sweat and cry,

bricks will crack, driveways too—
settling into a haunting beauty,

everything tilts differently,
microscopically altered
from your last place.

Yet, you wonder
if the windows
will stick in winter,
stay open in summer .

You wonder where will
the dust angels hide,
what room can you
see the stars clearly.

The screened in porch,
you notice, let’s
in too much sun.
  
You feel its heat
on your arm
during the tour.

Will it hold your gravity,
if it can’t hold its own?

The air conditioning
shrieks like a ghost.

You hear squirrels
dancing in the attic,
the ones that will
keep your dog
barking all night.

You look for the line
where the water stopped.

The angst settles in you
like night fog, like a lifetime
of settling that ***** you in,

The heavy rain comes
in amounts that
can’t be bailed fast enough.

The house is a lake.
The lake is inside you,
and in the collapse
of the roof, you see the sky.

The house starts floating away
and you disappear inside it.
Jonathan Moya Mar 2020
I am not your dying son, I thought,
as my wife gave me the diagnosis,
remembering my mom in her dying chair.

I will not pass into final memories
watching the Pope in America.
“Bless me, Papa”,
will not be my last words.

I do not believe in my mother’s God
though He did write the best proverbs.
I do not sleep with a Bible on my pillow.
I wake up feeling my heartbeat and breath.

“I am going to die,” she said to me,
days before she passed, on our stroll
to the mailbox, school traffic humming,
finches at the feeder, magnolias blooming

removing her from the usual guard spot
at the window for sightings of the mail truck,
hoping for the delivery of the slightest news.

“You know, I’ve been talking to Jesus
because I don’t want to go to hell.”
“We’ve been through hell already,
haven’t we,” I said.

I imagined a weeping Mary
telling Jesus on the cross
“You never told me
anything of this.”

“Your poem made my day,”
were her last words on our walk,
the last she spoke to me.

A memory of the evenings
of my childhood,
washed over me:

The slice of night
filtering through
as I crept from my bed
to watch her praying the rosary.

Those last days she made a lullaby
with a hint of elegy in the song.
The box of her mind walked there.

The words were nonsense,
just reflections of the melody,
part of all the shining on the road.

She died,
like her mother before,
like her son will,
like we all, like life.

I regret not telling  
her of my dreams,
my nightmares,
my future

while sipping tea at midnight
with her at the kitchen table.
I can only wash, wipe
and pick up the crumbs.

Fallen leaves cannot open time
or add a few short years
to days never meant to be.

In my repose and cancer days,
grey smoke floats the sky
burnt paper and ashes
that drift my mother away.
Jonathan Moya Mar 2020
I will spend my lifetime
fulfilling the dreams of the dead,
writing to the living of
how their hopes were fulfilled,
hoping their prayers
will blossom a million miracles.
Jonathan Moya Feb 2020
Wake dear, and rise,
sleep not this day.
Let our two dreams
play to and fro with each.

Let’s dance in the sun
shouting— one beam,
the light’s high joy.
You nor I will not cry today

as you gambol and swirl,
as I dream, hope,
now words, then love and vows
united.

‘Tis by the first touch
of moonrise’s delightful sway
will we share our future
with the stars.
Jonathan Moya Feb 2020
My sweet little one, these sea days
are smaragdine.  I feed time emeralds
to extend your birth.  I nestle you
close though you float away from me
small dream to dream to dream.

Standing in front I see
all your suns. Breath unions us a
mist reared from tide.  Like a tern
winged in breeze seeing only the yellow,
you soar— dream.  

The sun is a darkness to sleep,
eyes not open.  Float, dream.
I grant you my gems, my nights
so no dark moons wane
on your unbroken horizon.
Jonathan Moya Feb 2020
M
My ugly M: two lonely
crescent wings touching the sun,
an  Icarus mounting up,
than melting into the whirl;
the waterfall between mountains;
caterpillars kissing like
moths fluttering to the light.

OY
O- a strawberry, orange
just ripe for a thumb to squish;
a lasso, not a noose;
a good herd dog corralling
Y- to M to A; my tongue;
or the necktie that makes the
suit of my name, my place here.

A
A- the tadpole in the marsh,
the eye searching for the nose,
the hurricane kissing land,
the alpha inside the all,
acknowledging the end
is not the start, nor circle,
but the tail seeking the future.
Jonathan Moya Feb 2020
In the cancer museum
I imagine where mine
would rest in peace and ease.

My eyes scan rows of organs:
Disney’s lungs on top of
Newman’s own **** pair;

Ingrid Bergman’s left breast
bump Bette Davis’ right—
indiscreet voyagers;

Audrey Hepburn’s colon
nesting Farrah Fawcett’s
like Tiffany Angels.

I saw my spot next to…
but the doctor called me
back to look at the scans.

He pointed out my growths
grouped in a triangle,
told me of their plan/cure-

called them clouds but they seemed
caterpillars vegging
out on my intestines.

I imagined them cocooning,
metamorphosing to
surgical butterflies

or staying just rounders,
yellow earrings just for
Audrey’s and Farrah’s lobes.

Then the doctor turned it
and the picture became
more terrible things:

rats, sharks, wasps all vying
for valuable shelf space
in the small gallery.

Tourists and soldiers from
the plane crash/war museum
wander in wondering

why there are no jet planes
reassembling in slow
motion horror, dog tags

melted into the seats,
flesh in the torn engines,
no screams of real terror,

just the crowd bumping and
marching into me in silence,
sometimes taking pictures

while **** yellow chemo
solution runs down my
leg in pupae slime lines.  

The last one opens me,
looking for spikes of grief
or fury.  Finding none,

not even a cold tomb,
just a rip, tear, dim sounds
as the crowd echoes down

and surges out the door
for all the Holocaust
store souvenirs next door.

I hear my heart rustle
in the computer bytes,
the breath of trees

and swallows in my files,
a dusty cross inside
releasing butterflies

to the sky as I step
back and watch all
****** into the blue.

“Do you think I got it
all in?” the doctor says,
snapping my last picture
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