Fat Moon/Good Bird

Keira Batten Coogan

Winter is swallowing my chances with you.

The moon is fat in tonight's sky, and there are these 

dull clouds following me to each body of water I visit.

I am swallowing wine from the week before

and wishing you were here on this porch—then I would know 

where to lean, and who to laugh with, and when the night should end.

I want to invite you into me, 

and then you would say yes and mean it,

and we would both turn to rain, or grass, or something else ordinarily good.

Do you remember the party?

Do you know how long it took me to move towards you from inside the crowd? 

I'm only asking because I know you don’t, 

and I want to know you well enough to tell you.

There is a bird.

There is a bird I know who looks just like you.

And then there is you,

who looks like you as well but in a different way.

I worry I am missing something obvious that I should already know.

I worry that you and the bird look nothing alike to anybody else.

And I worry that if I do it wrong, I will go on not knowing where to 

lean, or who to laugh with, or when the night is over.

I feel like a ghost at the bus stop—and that part has nothing to do with you.

I think that you are good on the inside, and I know that you are good on the outside, 

your haircut, and your shirt, and that face you make that I can’t quite describe.

I want to see you and I want to make you laugh,

and that’s all I really have to say about that part.

I want you to read my mind and like the things you see.

I want to talk about who we were in high school 

and say how we would have been good friends even if we don’t really think so.

I also have a sweater I think you would like, or look good in, or something else.

I have a body I want you to make worth something.

I have two hands I’ve never known what to do with.

I’m trying not to task you with making me good,

especially not before you love me.

I am hoping: there is something in me you would like or understand,

and I feel like I think that there is,

but it's not really about what I think.

Aside from your hair, and your shirt, I think I just want to hear you talk more.

I think I would like that, based on how I felt the other times.

I want to ask you questions that you enjoy answering and sit under a fat moon 

on a warm night, or a cold night even and we can make our own warmth some other way.

I want to know if I’m right about the bird—

If I’m right that there is something good to be done with us, 

or if I am just listening to the wrong music, and walking the wrong way home.

I want someone to tell me what to do, and how to feel, and what is and isn’t true—

and again, that part has nothing to do with you.

I promise not to ask you to tell me who I am, only who you are, 

and I will tell you how you move me.

I am happy to have nothing to do with your hair, or your shirt

and I don’t really mind how this bird looks—

It's not like you can tell me anything about my hands anyways.

I am trying not to task you with making me good,

especially while the winter fills me with this urgency.

This fat moon is telling me to ask if you are free on Friday, 

and to drive to the beach and pick up some rocks.

It's telling me to cut my hair, and to relax somehow.

This fat moon is telling me what to do, and how to feel, and what is and isn’t true, 

and you are telling me about who you were in high school,

and I really do think we would have been good friends.

You can hear this piece performed by Kez with instrumental accompaniment on Bri Louise’s self-titled album.