Today's poem is by Beth Copeland

Half Moon
       

Tonight's moon reminds me
of a black-and-white photograph

Gabriel took many years ago. One
side of my face flooded

with light, whiter than a geisha's
rice-powdered cheek, the left

dark as if a line's
drawn down the middle; one eye

swims in phosphorescence
while the other

stares into starless
night. Maybe

Gabriel loved me
but couldn't

say it, taking pictures
instead, studying curves

of a face he would carve
into a linden mask. I haven't

thought of Gabriel in years. Did he
go back to Lebanon after the war?

Is he in heaven with the angel
he was named for? I wish

I could hear his side of this
story, but I have only mine—half

shadow, half shine.

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Copyright © 2023 Beth Copeland All rights reserved
from Selfie With Cherry
Glass Lyre Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission