Poetry By Lara Payne

No More Plains CC



​
Loon
 
Grief key. Night note.
Pitch of lake and sky.
Even here, you find me.
The love I hold for my friend
now a continent away.
Those muscles I strained.
Ache of dawn. The road unrolling.





Moon knocks
 
her bone white knuckles
on the glass of my sliding door.
Door that is mine
solely for a fortnight
 
Night barrier. Morning still hours away.
The clock dark until I tap it to glow green.
 
In the dream the girl
was not lost, no
but her voice came from afar
through her phone,
angry as only a teen can be.
If I call her ‘the girl’
will I miss her less?
 
Who will the moon see
when I open the door?
Selves spin in me:
child, maiden, mother.
The moon is also three
sees all of me, spread
like an oracle
on the wooden table.
 
Sometimes she turns away
dark, dark as the sky when bare
of her. Oh, bear with me, moon,
bide awhile. The highway could lead
us away, the train does not stay.
 
Owls and frogs sing
that winter is leaving, if I loosen
will I, too, green soon?
 
Come, moon, into my lonely
room. The slope of the hill
is gentle, here, every day
something that slept, awakens.
Even the night is full of song.




Lara Payne lives in Maryland. Her poems, many of which explore the Chesapeake environment and people, have appeared in a museum, on buses, and in print and online journals. Recent poems have appeared in Gargoyle, One Art, and SWWIM Daily.
​