A HOLE IN THE SKY I once saw something I can’t explain. I saw my grandfather looking through the window of my second-story apartment, his bald eyes peeling back my sins, especially the ones I enjoyed. Locked in an eternal staring contest with him, I forgot I’d been awake for two days until I twitched. Surrounded by the blistering, chill air where god and devil meet, he melted into the pane’s hollow imprint of the moon. The next morning, I inspected the building, but found no anchoring bricks large enough to provide a step up to my window. I was sad to see the remains I had of him explained by the lack of grimy footprints— I thought he had clawed back into the world that erased him to hand me a twenty-dollar bill he always sent me on my birthday— the only way he knew how to communicate when he was near the end. On nights when sleep can’t erase me, I listen to a moon as blank as him as it talks of things he never could.
Jeremy Ra is a queer, Chinese-Korean-American poet living in Los Angeles. His poems have appeared or will appear in I-70 Review, Cultural Daily, San Diego Poetry Annual, and Glimpse. He was a finalist for the 2021 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and the PEN Center Emerging Voices.
All rights © Jeremy Ra
a moon of one's own 