*Here’s a poem-non-poem I wrote on my phone, in the back of a farmer’s luxurious taxi-van, taking me from our hotel in Alanya to Antalya Airport, while hot on a 39+ degree fever, remembering last night’s moon:
And of all the moon sonnets I read and never liked
This is the one I want to write: the moon traipsing its light on
the midnight Mediterranean Sea
In Alanya, somewhere in Turkey,
(Yes, the Middle East has a moon, too)
Somewhere reminiscent of some of my childhood dreams and family vacations
in my home country
Here’s the night, and the ocean snapping
bursting into little smiles on each wave pivoting to white
Here’s us, in a big car, trying not to fall for the cliches of late summer nights
Everyone ought to look at the moon one night
be fucking dazzled
and forget the words to all the songs about the moon-
because suddenly they are so true
The shadow of this moon is so bright
caressing the menacing surface of the deep waters,
calling me
Calling me
and all the hairs on my body,
the body of my hairs,
pointing, dragging me into the night.