Gail Cooper

the morning moor reminds me of Earth 
pictures you see from space, 
a reflection engendered 
through sonorous satellite signals 
bouncing off & over. the morning 
moor empty, 
waterless with thick green 
green grasses, their dry waves bowed 
to everyday wind, tip to root.  
black mud sliming, 
eternal. spreading, 
sprawled. her body moor body 
extended. bare spots 
fill by midday to electric
blue made bluer in its proximity 
to green. birds & dogs & humans trample 
through rivulets & tears,
through pieces of muck & wonder. i eat 
your green & blue & black, 
& move into the smell.  
the moor smells like the sea, 
like a tucked away pool of ocean,
filling, lowering.  
the moor—i want another word 
for it that moves & sways, comes 
close & smells with the coming, 
then pushes away  
again. her body limitless,
curving its shape across the mind.  
i face her shifting muddy flat,
deceptive like quicksand, 
a mood shifting under my pressing-down foot.  
eddying pools & puddles 
a million-handed network of finger lakes 
fitted inside a whole body.  
on her other side the rest of the world,
but in between, sand mounds.  
shifting hills of grasses 
& short bristled branches protruding 
from impossible sand roots.  
they don’t fool me 
that anything can stay here, 
that anything holds 
here. when the sun moves, 
things look different, depth smooths 
to a shiny reflective surface
& everything that was isn’t, 
but more so.