When I found the Abides scrawled in black crayon
and white chalk all over Birmingham downtown
I began to suspect a grass roots marketing campaign
for the Abide Women’s Prayer Conference in Alabama
since prayer could be the answer to Abide I confessed
to Ruby I had stolen the June strawberry moon
from the Algonquins their first of the season
while wild strawberries ripened and Ruby
of nine years told me about her secret society
of 999 pandas organized for the purpose of evil deeds
the pandas planned to steal the moon her mother said
mirrored the plot of Despicable Me but no
we talked tides high tide low tide high tide how her city
without the moon would drown I had seen drawings
of what will happen when glaciers melt St. Michael’s Church
underwater downtown in the low country but when Ruby
came back with Okay then we will steal the sun for 9 minutes
I knew the plan was her own since at age 4 she had put on
her eclipse glasses to witness the sky darken the birds hush
waiting she had grown restless and left for the playroom
all this time we thought she had not been watching
—
Linda Casebeer has lived and worked in Birmingham, Alabama for thirty years. She has published poems in various literary journals including Slant, Earth’s Daughters, Canary, and Hospital Drive as well as two collections of poems, The Last Eclipsed Moon and Charm and Strange.
