<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class="">Oration: Half-Moon in Vermont</div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">A horse is shivering flies off its ribs, grazing<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Through the stench of a sodden leachfield.<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">On the broken stairs of a trailer<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">A laughing fat girl in a T-shirt is pumping<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Milk from her swollen breasts, cats<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Lapping at the trails. There's a sheen of rhubarb<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">On her dead fingernail. It's a humid morning.<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Tonight, with the moon washing some stars away,<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">She'll go searching for an old bicycle in the shed;<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">She'll find his father's treasures:<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Jars full of bent nails, a lacquered bass,<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">And the scythe with spiders<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Nesting in the emptiness of the blade<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">And in the bow of its pine shaft.<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Milling junk in the dark,<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">She'll forget the bicycle, her getaway,<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">And rescue<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">A color photograph of an old matinee idol.<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Leaving the shed, she'll startle<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">An owl out on the marsh. By November<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">It will be nailed through the breast to the barn.<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">In a year the owl will go on a shelf in the shed<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Where in thirty years there will be a music box<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Containing a lock of hair, her rosaries,<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Her birth certificate,<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">And an impossibly sheer, salmon-pink scarf. What<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">I want to know of my government is<br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class="">Doesn't poverty just fucking break your heart?</span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="padding-left: 1em;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>- Norman Dubie</div></div></body></html>