We Must Be Honest Moon

We Must Be Honest Moon

New Moon  January 29, 2025

Hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual. 

-Robin Wall Kimmerer

Out of one world & into another

water into water, milk for milk

I had nothing to offer her

so I moaned when she moaned

& kept my eyes on her eyes

said I was so so sorry that pain

was visiting her in shuddering waves

it hurts, it hurts (yes it hurts, it hurts)

Imposter in the emergency room

only my finger maybe broken (not)

while this Being vocalized distress

time inexact under fluorescence

stranger-siblings seeking solace

circling the raw belly of our lives

in relationship for an afternoon

Did I dream of her last night

as an anxious whirlpool of climate-

fueled hot & angry seas swallowing ships

in that knowing of nighttime visions

I knew the strongman’s moral violence

would spread like sad blood

through the tired bed of our world

I woke not-alone & inconsolable

(her I know not where)

my timidity a graphic fearful spot

empathy shut-up in my imagination

a dartpoint of sky as we sat in the hospital

our momentary story briefly caught

(for how many actual breaths?)

on the nameless snag of suffering

I desperately want her to know

as I yearn to learn myself

that I do not despise our pain

or our shadowed love-wish for release.

Poem by Qayyum Johnson

Drawing by Suiko McCall