Paper Moons

The paper was just junk mail at first—

a coupon for toothpaste, a dentist reminder,

Your name misspelled in the corner like a dare.

I cut around it anyway.

✧

I didn’t want the words.

I wanted the clean underside,

that pale blank hush,

The part that forgives being folded.

✧

In the living room, the lamp leaned yellow

over everything we never fixed—

the loose tile, the joke that went mean,

the silence that kept winning.

✧

I tried a crane, failed, tried again.

My thumbs kept slipping,

like they didn’t believe in angles.

Funny, how hope needs geometry.

✧

Outside the sky was a bruised grape

clouds thick as unwashed sheets.

I taped my little moon to the window

and it looked ridiculous—

and then, sort of brave.

✧

A bus sighed at the corner.

Someone laughed too loud, then stopped.

I held the paper moon up to the glass

until the streetlight found it

and gave it a cheap halo.

✧

Not a miracle, no.

Just a soft glow that said: keep going.

Or maybe it said nothing at all—

And I heard what I needed.