James B. Nicola
Mooneyed Sky
The mooneyed sky winks seven trillion times.
You're not sure if she's flirting or embarrassed of her freckles,
the blemishes so beautiful, brazen, cold, shy,
distant.
Such a night's for couples who will not look up,
but feel the firmament anyway; for astronomers
who will, but are predisposed to be thrilled;
for dreamers, poets, and certain celibates,
who must have moon-eyed skies to feel at all,
thereupon—thereunder—feeling
nearly
Everything
Bio
James B. Nicola's poems have appeared stateside in Shot Glass Journal; the Antioch, Southwest, and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; Tar River; and Poetry East. A Yale graduate, he has won a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, a People's Choice award (from Storyteller), and six Pushcart nominations, for which he feels both stunned and grateful. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His four poetry collections are Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), and Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018). Coming up: Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (Cyberwit, 2019)