No matter your feelings about Valentine’s Day, which is imminent, I think we can agree that love itself is worth some celebration. Sherry Barker Abaldo’s “Lunatics,” with its beautifully breathless short lines, revels in two big loves: one between partners, and one for the wide, bright, moonlit world.

Sherry Barker Abaldo lives and writes in Union, where she grew up. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, reviews and anthologies. She has also written scripts for documentary and feature films.

 

Lunatics

By Sherry Barker Abaldo

 

I lie

in bed with you

halfway

between our hearth fire

and the fullest moon

we’ll ever live

to see,

supposedly.

 

I keep running

out naked

onto the doorstep

checking the moon

every few hours.

I tell you how white

and how clear

and how pregnant everything is.

 

You check the woodstove.

You wait for me.

You don’t need to see;

you believe my reports.

You gather me again

and again into your arms

like kindling,

our moonlit skin blue as India gods.

 

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Lunatics” copyright © 2019 by Sherry Barker Abaldo, reprinted from “Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall” (Encircle Publications, 2019) by permission of the author.

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