Lunula

I suspect
sometimes
I have not lived enough:
having the time of my life
seemed foolish, so cautious
with my vessel,
that I must be careful
with temples and vastus:
special knowledge cultured
like lands of milk and honey
in the very pit of it, the saffron
in the the stamen, sinning
in a small child-like
believing. Well,
one more night
I'd like to lie here: seeing
what has been for sure,
it was only naked fear, after
all I am crystal, cool and pure;
I always admired trapeze artists
for their nets of faith;
goodness for my own sake,
clarity comes without tea leaves;
I don't even sleep in my dreams,
but pulled like a thread
through buttons,
four eyes peering (a pair of two)
set for inward and
outward perceiving. I could
rush the ending but
what would be the point?
I know that I wield words
like water, the thrum of
hummingbirds after nectar:
the eye for the needle. Pushing
the window open wide.
I mean to make impressions,
reading the fall
of palms, the fingernails
on skeins of loquacious
strings of crescents, those
pearly slender moons; the
honest pleasure knowing
too late, the butter,
the cream on top, floating
what it means to be
on the razor's edge
of your good graces.
In the end it wasn't the brunt
of expectations, but
a simple twist of fate
that secured my name, written
in long depressions,
the lifeline of your making hand.

Author's Note

The lunula, or lunulae (pl.) (nail moon), is the crescent-shaped whitish area of the bed of a fingernail or toenail. The lunula is the visible part of the nail matrix (i.e. the root of the nail). In humans, it appears by week 14 of gestation, and has a primary structural role in defining the free edge of the distal nail plate (the part of the nail that actually grows outward).