*** When The Moon Smiles ***

*** When The Moon Smiles ***
I wanted to look at you
the way the moon does tonight —
slow, full,
heavy with a silence that soothes.
I wanted to taste you
like one brushes a cameo:
you, the carving hand,
I, the figure learning to remain.
I wanted.
I would have wanted.

But an owl — grave, unflinching —
split the breath of the night:
Boredom is coming, it said,
with its raucous flock,
to devour anything
that dares resemble love.
And the moon
does not speak.
It smiles — yes —
but it tightens into a grin,
a light that does not warm.

The sky lowers,
gives in.
It is the same surrender I carry,
the same mistake dripping through my hands
and tearing the horizon open
into a living wound,
bleeding light.

“You see poetry in it,” you say.
I don’t.
I see the step advancing
without asking,
the threshold opening
and offering no shelter.
And I remain there —
exposed.

And no one comes.

#cuordileoneminiature #englishcontemporarypoetry #moonlight #lovepoem #uneditedpoem