Five-Minute Exposure, Large Format

The moon comes up like an almond

And down like an orange.

It wasn't the moon, but the mountain.

The moonfish has a face that ends

In a healing. Your hands pass

Over the gash and all at once

There is singing. At thirty-five,

I was laid out by an ex-communicated priest.

His hands felt like a firewalk

On a hot afternoon. The priest

Was a drunkard, but what did it matter?

The face of the moonfish

Slashes through the sky. The clouds open,

The light dances, angling in from the playa.

No one knows where the shadows

Come from. It's a mystery, like the hands

Of the priest, like the almonds that slip

From the blood orange of the night.

When his hands touched my forehead

I fell to the floor. I had asked to feel

What my lover felt—she who was

Opened by a surgeon's knife,

By the touch of a rapist when only

A child. Why should I feel what she

Wished to forget? I asked to know empathy.

I fell into a swoon and landed curled

On the floor. When she woke

From anesthesia, I gently stroked her

Forehead. The first words she spoke

Were "No, please don't."