spirograph

the moon sets again
and again, a spirograph pattern centripetal spin
pushed along by my hand on my landscape
horizon, black on blue, and the sinking disk
goes down, goes down again, goes down
each moon phase a face of some one
that I love, and these loves
these orbiting satellites pulled to my breast,
my gravity, pulled into ovals and circles
repeatedly, overlapping paths, a design,
some grand design, the lines that shift and shift
minutely as the weeks and years,
as I spin at my molten core, keeping them
always in view, the ones sometimes cold and
distant, the ones that veer close to me catching
my breath, my heart pounds,
and the small moon of my child, here in my out-
stretched palm, always circling --

I am turning my back on myself forever,
knowing they can only be this close, or that,
but my face needs their light, I only can see
by that light, by their faces turned to me.

Lover, turn to me -
husband, turn to me -
friend, and friend, and friend --

child, who will only look over his shoulder
who sometimes suddenly rises before me,
full faced expectant, I am the plain,
I am the flat river before him, reflecting,
and he is the sun, the center,
the only thing that really matters
anymore.