Half-Moon

The half-moon at my left thumbnail’s base,

off-center, pale against the pink.

I caught it typing out some phrase

about milk and bread, had time to think.

A slight ridge running down its middle,

a flaw I’d never really seen.

Just this small, hard, translucent riddle,

a tiny landscape, stark and clean.

My own body, a map unread.

These little signs, these growing lines.

What stories buried, left unsaid,

in this small crescent that defines

some part of me, beneath the skin.

Always there, just out of sight.

A silent, constant, quiet din

of what I am, in pale soft light.