MOONFLOWER

image curtesy of The MET Museum Archives

by Lydia Downey

There was a perpetual
            residue on our hands.
                        Steamed milk stuck like tar

as my friend and I scrubbed
            down each closing shift
                        and stole our dinners

of half-stale, chipped pastries.
            We gave up trying
                        to leave early

and walked the long path
            to our apartment
                        somewhere

after ten, when only pheasants
            commuted alongside us
                        to their receding woods.

As the assertive
            wind pushed us forward
                        to the cliff of night, we tangled

next to each other,
            vines on a concrete wall.
                        She shared a sonnet

with me in her mother
            tongue and I believed
                        I could understand;

I believed her long hair
            unfurled into hundreds
                        of lilac moon-

flower petals and her satin
            voice carried me as a stream
                        to our beige cul-de-sac.

While we complained
            of clothes cologned in dried foam
                        and hazelnut syrup,

we were silently
            grateful our shared labor
                        had tethered us together.
           
Even in this manufactured city
            she bloomed under
                        the hangnail of the moon

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