A Miscalculation of the Moon

she picks slivers of silver from the river at midnight.
the full moon scatters them with such abandon
she cannot imagine they are needed anywhere and besides,
there will be more tomorrow.
As the lunar globe slips behind clouds, a hiss
announces the rain as it hits old leaves and suddenly choppy water.
She holds out her tongue and catches a few drops,
pressing them against the roof of her mouth
as if they were grapes peeled by courtesans. The rain
tastes of sulphur and cardamom pods and in her mind's eye
she sees a street in Birmingham, washing strung across a yard
too small for the three children playing in the dirt and the one girl
rocking in the corner by the fence, her face a mask of perpetual shame
as she nurses a belly heavy with her first child
and though she looks at her sister and two brothers' game
she is beset by silence.