The story goes that the Aboriginal moon –
Old Man Yoola – attends women who bathe
in rivers. Two maidens invited him on a midnight
canoe ride. Smiling, they overturned the canoe

and watched him sink belly-up in his own
reflection. From above and below,
this moon glares at every woman in view.
You’ve left for tilting latitudes, lover,

gone for another continent. We spent the day
wading a mountian creek, and skipped
smooth stones into grey clay banks.
Do you remember my incantation to leave:

when you move from sight, I watch
everything without this passion. I live
below stars’ celestial fires, satellites
freeze-framing the flat earth. In Tibet,

lamas sit under the winter moon wrapped
in wet blankets. Tonight, it is happening again.
In the cold waterways you travel,
the moon is drowning in your heat.