New Moon in November

It’s a new moon in November this night
and the river’s running cold below the hill
the wind blew cold this afternoon too
and the music I hear is as bitter as love
and painfully sweet as the time and memories I kill

A voice sings to me lying here in the dark
and to the moon waxing up there in the sky
as it splashes its light around like tears
flying from the faces of God-struck dancers
to wash my moon-struck sill

My lovers were few but my losses were great
for my life was engorged until I was undone
by my appetite for each one’s very breath
and I fear that I may have suffocated them all
one by each faithless one

I remember their touch and the taste of each mouth
my slippery fingers and their slippery hands
the heat of their guts and smell of their hair
their names come back to me even in dream
one by each faithless one

And the moonlight falls through the window like iron
shaking the floor beams and shaking my heart
for I cannot forget and God! I still feel

And the man on the radio weaves at his song
in a November night sharp and heartless as steel