Three poems by Michelle Geoga
Superlative, Love Sonnet XXXV, and Today in Beach
Superlative
The moon is full and super, a supermoon due to floating closer to the earth, close enough to pull down. Super is relative. My feet are small compared to an elephant’s, or the tires of a dump truck, but massive compared to the pinpoint stars flocking the moon that follows me when I walk the dog at six in the morning, in pitch black rivaling midnight. I should pull it down, make the stars the stars, make the supermoon rest in the pond until the sun chases it west. Instead, I put it in the dump truck and drive it to the beach. On the way, I tell it how expressive its face, how sad its shadows, like acne scars from being fourteen not fourteen billion. I tell it how beautifully it glows, how we love it more than the sun, upon whom we cannot gaze as we can upon the moon, the sun whose petulance burns our skin or by its absence, depresses our days. I roll the moon down the dune into the lake, the sun rising behind us but in no rush. I watch the moon climb wispy and pale back up into the pinking sky, shrinking not super anymore. And where are the stars now? Those upstarts invisible in the fading sky but the moon hangs on, slinking toward its daily extinction, defying the sun, outlasting the stars, gazing down upon us all, in its imperfectness, upon the imperfect.
Love Sonnet XXXV
What can you say about love after thirty-five
years, three children, two grands?
You can say ‘comfortable’ or ‘worn but strong,’
worn like a leather purse that ages well, but
that isn’t the same thing as love. What you can’t say
about love, after decades of work respecting each other,
agreeing to disagree, ignoring those little, tiny annoying
habits no one else even notices, is that it’s blind.
You can’t say it’s puppy love anymore. You can’t say
it’s infatuation. That ship has sunk. What can you say
about love after more than twelve thousand days
in the same bed? You say it all the time: good morning,
good night, I’m sorry, you look great. I love you.
And keep saying those things for thousands more days.
Today in Beach
The lake curls its water-smooth lip along the shore, rolling
along, scalloping the sand into miles of smooth icing.
Shadow-bright clouds ache down and rest on the lake. Then
they sigh open, sending rain down to marry the lake’s water,
a little at first, then more, gentle and slant. Pattered,
I hurry home, not unhappy with the soft whispering rain
on my head, on the leaves along the dirt road, wondering
if the lake wishes it was cloud or the clouds wish they were lake.
About the Poet:
Michelle Geoga is a writer and artist originally from Chicago, currently living in Southwest Michigan. Her writing has appeared in Little Patuxent Review, Five on The Fifth, Bridge Eight, Cleaver, Longleaf and elsewhere. Her visual work has been featured in New American Paintings, the Center for Fine Art Photography, Woman Made Gallery and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Writing and a BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and was granted a residency at Yaddo. She can be found at michellegeoga.com.