Poetry Submission | Clare de Lune

i’m standing on sleeping bear dunes.
surrounded by cousins,
my first friends –
the sun is melting into my favorite colors.
my hair is sea shell blonde,
my feet are tiny and there’s sand between my toes.
i look out at blooming cherry trees
surrounding the row of three red barns –
decreasing in size. i wonder –
who tends to them? what’s in them?
who painted the pine green doors?

we stop for ice cream
on the way home,
my dad always does.
i order one scoop of blue moon
in a sugar cone, typical,
and later ask my dad why it’s called blue moon –
if we don’t know whether the moon
or the color blue tastes savory or sweet.

i fall asleep
with lake dried skin and a tired mind –
in a room with eight beds
and moonlight dripping through open windows –
dreaming of twenty two year old me,
hoping, that he will know the story
behind those three red barns.