Peter LaBerge
Decatur, Georgia
For all its knowing, the moon watched
the van of brothers as they drove
full-speed into the estuary. Georgia
spat them out with the same mouth it spat
all sin out. For months, the moon opened
like a mouth with nothing to say—even once
the brothers drowned & the black bells
still declined to ring. This structure bearing
the lord's name, it was not made
to acknowledge our impolite queer grief—
so each brother built his own miniature church
inside his body, where no god would think
to look. For years, devout—carving names
into moonlit linoleum until each boy was
immortal. Then, prayers & white rocks
sunk to the sky's floor. Pew-locked mothers
threaded the peculiar relations of their sons. Until
summer bruised, they let the wind make birds
of their letters. Outside, Aidan Scott Michael Kieron—
a family of foals tumored a field with black hooves
until the dew settled & the moon dropped
each name into the ghost-country of its mouth.