Fewer words

the downright gall of minimalist poetry –
the universe stripped down to an
aberrant nakedness: one misplaced
mole, one tired breast, one painful navel
becoming an epic, becoming the side of a
square, the thud after the gunshot,
the apocalypse, the horizon of silence –

fewer words than the moon spoke last
night, looking down at the space between
us from its vantage point. Surely a poem
should see more than that, should say
more than that? But four audacious
lines stare at me from your page –

like tenuous shadows
evidence of light:
gods manifest by absence –
a leap of faith.