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  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Support Us
  • Submit
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Volume I >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume II >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume III >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume IV >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume V >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume VI >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II

Daytime Moon

by Margaret McGowan
"I will look for you in every lifetime and love you there." —Kamand Kojouri

You came back
as a brown recluse

spider, wove
a web of wind

around my heart,
swung yourself

across the threshold
just to say goodbye,

the voyage of a ghost
who knew one world

was gone. A soldier
you never met played

Taps at your headstone,
the daytime moon

hung low in the sky.
Freshly plowed dirt

covered your grave
like a Texas Star Quilt.

Most saluted, their tender
gestures joined with silent tears,

the engraved letters
of your name

still visible
in the starlight.

Margaret McGowan is the author of Ancestors and Other Poems (2021). She was a finalist in the 2022 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest and received an honorable mention in the HVWG Poetry Contest 2019. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in QU, Hobart, MoonPark Review, and elsewhere.