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An Eclipse of Moths when I first see her pale skin and the dark art of her tattoos I am uncertain how much of her beauty belongs to her youth how much to her nakedness to parts of her which will depart or parts of her which will linger around her, upholstery left to weather a fifth of a fifth of bourbon still in the bottle, tires stacked on tires each ruined thing made poorer in contrast to the source of light her friends in casual awe of breasts a wealth made richer by these decaying reminders of what is the opposite of intimate ** Red Star Express where globalization and blue collar diverge, where paint peels, where summer smells like sealcoating and cut grass, we listen to a shopping cart rattle against the cracks in sidewalks, we hear a baby’s cries and the shoo, shoo, shoo, at the intersection of voyeurism and empathy the street lights hum, when the venn circles of exploitation and love create pointed oval ellipses — shaded with nostalgia, with memory, with future — we listen to sparrows hatching under the a.c. A car rumbles to a stop and the boys joke and shame each other as they ride their bicycles past the fire you know you want to fuck her flush-faced, rolling through the intersection of youth and something else, rolling —he doesn’t know if he can ever tell them-- rolling over poisoned soil where you can be sure the all quiet brick factory is/was westinghouse ** Redemption Center shirtless before gap-toothed vertical blinds of a punched-in-the-mouth storefront, Queen Anne’s lace cautiously judges ribs and belly, a blue bicycles’ broke spoke abandonment causes you to wonder what contemplation is possible when-- then wiggle your toes in the twin caves of too-big work boots on the shore of a red petalled parking lot puddle after the rain you take a breath and know crabapples are blossoming nearby—is this enough—close then open your hands redeem, redemption then those tricky prepositions from and for ** The Taxi Depot oh god, the rain you say during the fragrant moment it reaches dirt water softens not yet soaking fabric, and we are woven by the smell detergent meets dandelion and tonight we will gather on the grass beneath the water tower watch the persieds and defy gravity ** An Eclipse of Moths we arrange what no one else wants recreate the space in our homes where we ought to but can’t feel comfortable, where all the furniture suggests we might be at ease but heavy smoke and tired tones of voice place the room itself out of reach a coffee table, an ottoman, a sofa, the sky and shelter from the sky, we drag the armchair over gravel asking does it look right here? how ‘bout here? until we are tired, bored with the escapade, you tell her she looks beautiful, she says with an uncertain degree of tenderness, that you look hurt, then hands stroke the side of your head fingers in your hair along your scalp light spills from your lips and you float up into the air Charles Malone Author's note: "In 2020-2021, the photographer Gregory Crewdon’s images offered me a way to travel when I couldn’t. A chance to meet people, or, remember. Each photo is an invitation to ekphrasis, persona, lyricism and other ways of attending to their experience. In all, writing to them became a way to make in answer to my inability to make. Sometimes, I returned to the same image and wrote again. The troubles, joys, and doubts of my own places and people, my own “here,” were held up to my imagination by this remarkable work and I am grateful." Charles Malone is a poet and teacher in Kent, Ohio. His full-length collection Working Hypothesis is out with Finishing Line Press. And his chapbook Questions About Circulation was selected for publication by Driftwood Press as part of the Adrift Chapbook Series. He edited the collection A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park with Wolverine Farm Publishing and has work recently published or forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, The Best of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac, The Sugar House Review, The Dunes Review, and Saltfront. Charles now works at the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University coordinating community outreach programs.
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The Ekphrastic Review
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September 2023
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