Moonlit Seascape with Shipwreck, by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 – 1900)
The Trick
The payment came too late
To avoid eviction
He gave her the red red rose
Before I could
I chase trains daily
With each slipping out
Of my overstretched hands
Like a moon on temporary
Leave from wave duty
Like a moon traversing
Its promise of rhythm
And light for the clergy
Day after day she cried
And stopped when I walked in
Books strewn on rolled up carpet
As if she were ready to go
Sometimes I think everyone is happy
They’re just
Pretending to have
This massive empty place
They’re just pretending
To need other people
Food and shelter and warmth
In the white nights of December
If they could write a song
Or make a painting
Or build a wall
It would just have to be
Trains they could catch
With ease in a blacklit
Night with Marissa
– by Douglas Pinson
The moon development, with offshooting metaphor shower, in stanzas 3 and 4 is especially gladdening and “blacklit” is an inspired find, for me, as it says so much in one little word in conjuring “dimly lit backroom” and the delicious pleasure in retrospect that goes with that scene or any similar scene in the “back”, in private, coming by surprise, etc. Should I seem to misread the lines, it’s only to show that the poem’s ending phrases are rich with implication.