Nancy Carol Moody

CIRCUMSCRIPTION

Confused Sea Turtles March into Restaurant

— Rome (Reuters, August 19, 2008)

The moon angles in

from an odd degree,

and the hatchlings,

instinct their only

context, ferry their new

armor toward shimmer

and gleam, light an emollient

of liquid vibrato

runneling the surface

of this black world.

What do the turtles

understand of water,

their unseasoned flippers

all grasp and scatter

as they scuff their way

across the sand, the line

dividing earth from sea

indiscernible beneath

the night sky's nebulous

swirl? How can they

make one single thing

of this august moon,

blazing disc of ice both

out there and elsewhere,

nothing but primordial

breath to bargain

the space between?

It's not bewilder

that draws them into

this misconstrued light;

it's all seduction: thrum

of blue neon pulsing

above the café door,

shivers of candlelight

refracting through

the windowglass,

the chrome and glisten

of tablescapes. Electrics

masquerade

as element, afterimage

postures as unbounded

brilliance. And the turtles—

hapless, euphoric—

trundle headlong into

this treacherous bright:

the gloss and polish

of the dining room floor

beckoning like moonshine

enkindling the sea, chandeliered

starlight reflecting

in a drowning pool.

CIRCUMSCRIPTION first appeared in

The MacGuffin, Vol. XXVII, No. 2

SEXTANT

There,

she said,

when I kissed her

northeast.

I had been headed

south.

Once,

celestial bodies

were sighted

on the horizon.

Once,

it had been believed

that the stars

were enough.

SEXTANT first appeared in

The Carolina Quarterly, Vol. 61, No.1

ZORSE

Future zorses will combine the speed

and savvy of zebras with the friendliness

of horses —Associated Press

They’re doing it

in the mountains.

The woman’s spent

years courting

the zebra—handled him

since the day he came

out. Now she orders

the lights stay up. Muzak

be piped into the barn.

When the mood is just

right, she fires him into

mounting the mare, tricks

his semen to the jar

in her hand. Fifteen-

hundred bucks a shot.

Orders come

from as far as France.

I imagine it

happening in early morning: the summit

in blue shadow, sun zig-zagging

crazily through abandoned lifts.

Lupines scream. Seedlings

explode, sudden as mines.

The melt is high and

the lake is full. Water

flees the paunched

lips of the dam, hollers

down the mountainside

where further along, Girl

Scouts in tents and mummy-

bags stretch the soreness

of rocks from their bones,

remembering: a night of

charred dogs and S’mores,

blushed secrets and songs,

the discord of nature

just outside a fire-

ring of stones.

ZORSE first appeared in

The New York Quarterly, Issue #61

EROS

Pallor of ash, homely as a potato,

the asteroid named Eros tumbles

end-over-end in its loopy orbit

around the sun. For a year

a space probe, flimsy cylinder

of foil and shields, has been courting

the rock, making its passes, circling

closer, spawning photos it sends

one hundred ninety-six million

miles to Earth. But now the probe’s

batteries are running down, the satellite

spent beyond usefulness. Two day

short of Valentine’s, it makes the plunge

to the rock’s cratered surface where,

despite all predictions and the uncertain

perils of proximity, the probe continues

its lonely habit, the camera shuttering

glimpses of a geography unfathomed.

Marooned on the lovely and windless

plains of Eros, unable to align its panels

to the sun, the probe at best can survive

a month before its snapshots dim

finally into dusk, that delicate, moonlit

darkness where honeymoons begin.

EROS first appeared in

Poetry Northwest, Vol. XLIII, No. 1

A HISTORY OF FLIGHT

Of course they used ungodly words, those two

Wright boys—no contraption ever works the first

time out. They measured and considered, pursed

their lips and scratched their heads. When they first flew

their gliders, had they really thought it through,

the ultimatums of success—the thirst

for power beyond wind? Or that some would curse

as heathen acts their flights of derring-do?

But God, who hadn’t been so popular

in years, was thrilled to host these guys with guts

enough to fly in the face of gravity.

He let them rise, watched them through binoculars—

they looked a lot more fun than celibates.

Why should He mind their little blasphemies?

A HISTORY OF FLIGHT first appeared

as "The History of Flight" in

Talking River Review, Summer, 2002

NESTING

June, and the insatiable starlings

just outside our bedroom window

are raising their second batch

of babies this season, rackety

blusterers tucked into the eaves

of the house next door.

Mornings at sunup, the nest

is a tumult of appetite

and squawk. Evenings,

in the melancholy low-light

of the just-set sun, the drama

recycles: cacophony, then a quiet.

The outcome is not so different

from the creation: how the light

turns and a hunger rises.

Sound becomes us, and then

there is the silence.

NESTING first appeared in

Photograph With Girls (Traprock Books, 2009)

IN A WORD

Imagine a chair.

It might have a tall back,

curvaceous legs, a red,

come-hither cushion. You see

her, don't you? Not

a chair any longer. How

did that happen? How

could a simple chair

be transformed so completely, not

in a day, but in a breath? Back

up. Let's look at that. See

it now, the chair. Blood-red,

hard-cast steel, thick rods

to shape its spine, how

the seat is like stone. Can you see

the difference? This chair,

its indifferent eye, stares back

at you, pressing, yet not

quite pressing a large knot

deep into your gut, the red-

black clot of you pressing back,

and you not grasping how

all of this just happened. The chair,

after all, is just a chair—a sea

change, isn't it? So you see,

what they say is true: You are not

invulnerable. A simple chair

has entered you. It has read

your mind, your beastly heart. How

weak you are proved to be, back-

stabbed by language, at the beck

and call of simple words. See

how an image can hold you, how

you are not immune? You are not

any more to language than red

meat. Word bait. That chair

up there was not ever yours. Go back

to the top, start with the red. See

again the chair. Ask yourself how.

IN A WORD first appeared in

The Quizzical Chair (Uttered Chaos Press, 2009)

where the poems meet the pavement