And they will gather by the well,

its dark water a mirror to catch whatever

stars slide by in the slow precession of

the skies, the tilting dome of time, 

over all, a light mist like a scrim,

and here and there some clouds

that will open at the last and let

the moon shine through; it will be 

at the wheel's turning, when

three zeros stand like paw-prints

in the snow; it will be a crescent

moon, and it will shine up from

the dark water like a silver hook

without a fish--until, as we lean closer, 

swimming up from the well, something

dark but glowing, animate, like live coals--

it is our own eyes staring up at us,

as the moon sets its hook;

and they, whose dim shapes are no more

than what we will become, take up

their long-handled dippers

of brass, and one by one, they catch

the moon in the cup-shaped bowls,

and they raise its floating light

to their lips, and with it, they drink back

our eyes, burning with desire to see

into the gullet of night: each one

dips and drinks, and dips, and drinks, 

until there is only dark water,

until there is only the dark.

From The Girl with Bees in Her Hair by Eleanor Rand Wilner. Copyright © 2004 by Eleanor Rand Wilner. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. All rights reserved.