A long time ago I remember
moonlight washing my feet
in the dark of my own room

and tree branches multiplying
propelling their way across
my window, the menace

of an army of wood, hard,
unyielding, elegance
of nighttime gardens

and a new way of looking
at the moon, filtered
across dozens of tendrils

filigree of light on my floor.

Tonight there is flat dark
closed window, two of us
melded under covers and

I am watching moonlight
flicker like a torch
across the spreading branches

of your body in the night.

Catherine Osborne
24 September 1997