Full Moon First Class

Marilyn Robitaille

March 12, 2023

A full moon rises  

Way beyond Texas beautiful tonight 

Bob Dylan on the radio, cosmic waves 

He sings of tribulations, life, and love  

The moon casts sleek silvery in full sky  

Robin’s egg blue Mustang in the driveway  

Turns back to 1969 as beams strike across 

My mouth, full of peach, sweet Georgia  

Picked from the tree, saved from crows  

Full light washes over me like pearls  

My fingernails are diamonds sparkling 

My hair all highlights glistening flames   

My skin becomes translucent, glowing  

My eye beams twist and shoot strong 

At the man up there, man in the moon  

I bathe in this gentle light, breathe deep 

I’d best be sure of my brittle, human bones 

If I ignite some tryst in this lunar landscape 

We’d go salsa dancing in the light fantastic 

Cuddle up in craters, read stories by starlight  

Gaze at Jupiter while dining on delicacies  

Absolution for all my sins will land skyward 

As Lunar love grabs my hand, pulls me up 

I dare to leave all moonish doubts behind  

Nothing in the heft of normal adds this up 

I float up past trees and pastures, past the cows 

On a journey leading heavenward direct 

Into the starry, starry night so Van Gogh 

Man in the moon, now so close and smiling 

Tells me to ride the beams, don’t look down 

For sure, this is a first-class ticket  

Marilyn Robitaille recently transitioned from Tarleton State University after a forty-year career teaching English and administering international and study abroad programs. She founded Romar Press, an independent small press, with plans to focus on memoirs through sponsored creativity retreats and workshops. The first one will be held in Vermont in 2023. She has published one book of illustrated poetry Not by Design: Fifty Poems and Images, and her work has been included in multiple poetry anthologies and collections. She most recently collected, edited, and published Wine Poems, a collection of poems and related photographs all extolling the virtues and emotional associations we have with wine. She co-founded Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and co-hosted the long-running Langdon Review Weekend, a festival of the arts in Granbury, Texas. She has recently been named Managing Director of the Frazier Conservatory (opening in 2023), a planned private retreat in Stephenville, Texas, that will give special priority to non-profit organizations or events that celebrate the land, revitalization, the arts, and regional culture.