One Moon, One Sky

Tomorrow the madrone leaves will scatter.
I would like to be a leaf on the river, going
where the water takes me.

Ryokan might chase the plastic bag
as it tumbles toward the current, 
trash tangled in our underworld.

How can we live in a world
such as this—prophets of bad faith
all around us?

I want to follow Ryokan as he wanders,
settle in his hut by the river,
see the moon at my window. 

The moon remains,
the stars come out at night.
Everything
is in the heart.

But his hut isn’t big enough for the two of us.
There’s no bathroom. I listen to the rain
on the roof, look at the mountain.

Ryokan returns and says, I came back
after two hundred and sixty years, and still,
some people have too much, 
multitudes are hungry, war never stops.

A dog enters the hut, a leaf on his head.
The moon glows above us.

MARY SALISBURY

Mary Salisbury’s poetry has been published in Calyx, Michigan Quarterly Review, and other journals. An Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient, Mary earned her MFA from Pacific University. Her fiction has been published in The Whitefish Review and Cutthroat. Salisbury’s story collection, Side Effects of Wanting, was published by Main Street Rag.