Out of These Wounds, the Moon Will Rise 

Now that the sun has set and the rain has abated
And every porch light

in the neighborhood is lit,
Maybe we can invent something; I’d like a new

Way of experiencing the world, a way of taking
Into myself the single light shining at the center

Of all things without losing the dense, eccentric
Planets orbiting around it.

What you’d like is a more
Attentive lover, I suppose—. Too bad that slow,

Wet scorch of orange blossoms floating towards
The storm drain is not a vein of stars . . . we could

Make a wish on one of them; not that we would
Wish for anything but the impossible.

First appeared in Pleiades

Jay Hopler’s first book, Green Squall, won the 2005 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. The volume went on to win numerous awards and honors including a Florida Book Award and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award. His work has also been honored with a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and the Rome Prize in Literature. His latest collection, The Abridged History of Rainfall, was a Finalist for the 2016 National Book Award in Poetry.