Moonflower coupes

I dreamt that I saw two of those long forgotten half-moon coupes

flowing passed me as I stood in my garden

in the silent deep of the night.

Those crescent bodies of the deuce coupes were fashioned

entirely out of dreams and white-petaled moonflowers,  

soft as a little girl’s skin.

As I watched, those two coupes

glided onward down the ash-colored street,

shimmering, wakes of incandescence cooling

and then faintly splashing against the low curbing

to either side of the street.

There was no other sound.

I heard not a whisper of wind

in the silent deep of the moonlit night.

And then the satiny hushed coupes both turned together

onto the yard in front of the dark-windowed house

where the two little tow-haired neighbor girls I know both live.

And I will tell you now,

the ground-hugging edges of those moonflower coupes

fluttered just a little like little girls’ ruffled skirts

as they floated effortlessly

up and over the curbed edge and onto the dewy grass

in the silent deep of a moonflowered night.

The two little girls must have been fast asleep at that hour,

of course, and you should know, if you don’t already know,

that moonflowers bloom for only one night.