The Downward Glance

by Jennifer Mills Kerr


I can’t sing to the moon
today except to say the
usual phrase: she’s
luminous, radiant–
like a celebrity shining 
into the collective lens
with a cold and 
distant eye. 
Today I drop my gaze 
to my wheezing cat, the 
aspen trees yellow and 
aching with thirst. I sing to 
my neighbor’s abandoned 
sedan sinking into the earth. 
I sing to my aching feet. 
I sing to ladybugs, to ants
I sing to dead leaves, to grit, 
to dying plants.  I keep singing
I keep singing through 
my downward glance. 


* * * * *

Jennifer Mills Kerr is a writer and poet living in Lake County, California. An East Coast native, she loves mild winters, anything Jane Austen, and the raucous coast of Northern California.