"...to carry away memories brought for the forgetting
on one thousand one auspicious origami birds
whispering over chilled salmon, ripe fruit
suggesting the fertility of the afternoon."
from the poem, "One thousand one wedding cranes" 1998
Love triangle with Jerusalem
​
You paint dreams
feelings
quiet despair
in small wordstrokes
I hear insistent hunger
for the desert still gnawing on you
You sit across, naked on the couch,
smoking the way men in war do,
this is lovemaking talking this way
several arm lengths apart,
my breast fills with sweet longing
even my toes wiggle
Sensing the shape of this inevitability
you inhale tears through
the Kool’s filter, exhale
only smoke,
there is nothing you can do,
with me you catch fire
Even in this foggy city
you are a desert dweller,
believe I live in flames where you
fear you would lose yourself,
and yet, you return,
extinguish your cigarette,
lay down, inhaling me
I caress the sharp line
of your jaw as you turn your face
to her, your desert, your Jerusalem, so close
nothing can lie between you,
you begin painting again
with words on my body
​
© Sharon Lopez Mooney, "Oh, Children of War", originally published in Visible, ed. Stephanie Drenka, featured in Visible Magazine, online, May 26, 2021, Dallas, Texas, https://visiblemagazine.com/chasing-the-trail-of-endings/