POEM OF THE DAY BY MAUREEN N. MCLANE

Passage I
little moth I do not think you'll escape this night I do not think you'll escape this night little moth * bees in clover summer half over friends without lovers * I bite a carrot horsefly bites me * I thought it was you moving through the trees but it was the trees I thought it was your finger grazing my knee it was the breeze I thought prayers were rising to a god alive in my mind they rose on the wind I thought I had all the time and world enough to discover what I should when it was over I thought I would always be young though I knew the years passed and knowing turned my hair gray I thought it was a welcome what I took for a sign— the sun...the unsymboling sun... * watch the clouds on any given day even they don't keep their shape for more than a minute sociable shifters bringing weather from elsewhere until it's our weather and we say now it's raining here * Vermont shore lit by a fugitive sun who doesn't believe in a day's redemption * sunset renovation at the expected hour but the actual palette still a surprise * gulls alit on the lake little white splendors looking to shit on the dock * little cat kneading my chest milkless breasts take your pleasure where you can * not that I was alive but that we were -Maureen N. McLane