JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Swelling moonchild, I crooned to you
from the first weeks
when you were just a sliver
in your mother’s eye
my lips pressed to your ear
through humid sticky August nights
I sang you Elvis, the Beatles

 

You absorbed it all seriously

my little Jonah

swimming like a warm fish
inside a beached whale
accompanying me with
your gurgles and bubblings

Head to the taut pot
I admit it, I sang you
bawdy pub songs
loud and lewd
while admiring fragrant
pubic hair peeping at me,
at you, from between
incongruously skinny legs

 

Then as your swell
matched that of your sister
in the autumn sky
I sang you the songs of my youth
spirituals, barbershop quartets
campfire ditties from old summer nights
 

Suddenly in a pause

between verses
her water broke like Moses
striking the rock
and grabbing our bag
we made a dash for it
and holding the whale’s hand in the taxi
I hummed you both some
nervous little melody
while your sister, full now
laughed at us from above

Many moons later, I stood
outside the window
as through the cold winter evenings
your little lunar fingers
practiced scales and
Quasi Una Fantasia
over and again
while my heart shivered with you

 

Yes, I recognized you in the sky
child of my moon
but now you sing different songs
dance to different music
and it is we who must now learn
your misty glowing rhythms

new moon rhythms
beating through the night
as we, hushed audience
listen in wonder
only partly comprehending
the melodies of the new world’s dawn