The Moon Can’t Remember Anything

Doubt everything.

But never doubt the moon

was in the room with us that night.

It touched each place we touched

on both of our bodies.

Every word we said

was spoken in its presence.

Every cry we uttered in trust and abandonment.

So what the moon can’t remember anything?

I hereby solemnly swear that night

you told me you could feel the moon’s

tilt, weight, and spin,

mastering in silence, from a distance, your own

body’s gravity, buoyancy, and ripeness,

as well as your heart’s phases, which at first

traced your mind’s orbit, and then outraced it

to vault to and inscribe

a wider embrace.

All on a night before we knew

you were carrying our first child.

All we said and did committed

before the moon’s earless audience,

under the moon’s eyeless gaze. In the light

of its weightless silver poured upon us,

we appeared turned

to marble. The years proved

we were anything but stone.

Question everything

but this: you and I

achieved the secret

plush of a nearly pure privacy,

further perfected

only by our deaths.

Notes:

This poem is part of the portfolio honoring Li-Young Lee as the recipient of the 2024 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a recognition for outstanding lifetime achievement from the Poetry Foundation. Established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly, the prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to living US poets. Read the rest of the portfolio in the October 2024 issue.

Source: Poetry (October 2024)