SMALL PLEASURES

a night cool, crisp 

cloudless

tomorrow a full moon but

tonight my beloved

egg shaped 

moon returns, severe

dazzling and white-silver

it obscures the half-dozen

brightish points 

cosmologists call

stars, cosmology 

my weakest suit 

no stargazing here

in a suburb of the great

american city, no 

only swirls

of smoke from my

unfiltered american cigaret

if i relax my gaze

the antique streetlamp

at the foot of my driveway

comes out of focus

and light swirls

as in a later van gogh

small pleasures

they . . . sustain

copyright © 2018 by patrick o'hayer