Private: Philip Levine: In Memoriam

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Late Moon

 

2 a.m.
December, and still no moon
rising from the river.

My mother
home from the beer garden
stands before the open closet

her hands still burning.
She smooths the fur collar,
the scarf, opens the gloves

crumpled like letters.
Nothing is lost
she says to the darkness, Nothing.

The moon finally above the town,
The breathless stacks,
the coal slumps,

the quiet cars
all whitened at last.
Her small round hand whitens,

the hand a stranger held
and released
while the Polish music wheezed.

I’m drunk, she says,
and knows she’s not. In her chair
undoing brassiere and garters

she sighs like a dog
and waits for the need
to move.

The moon descends
in a spasm of silver
tearing the screen door,

the eyes of fire
drown in the still river,
and she will be herself.

The little jewels
on cheek and chin
darken and go out,

and in darkness
nothing falls
staining her lap.

 

—Philip Levine, The Hudson Review, Volume XXV, Number 4, Winter 1973

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