Moonshine

The winter of water goes on, and

on, as house by house the streets

sink into streams, pedestrians transform

into canoeists chancing their arm,

a paddle in the night. I tire

of driving through the darkness

straining to make out the way ahead

between the wash of wiper-blades,

the splash of rain. Further on, above

the hills I think I can distinguish

a dull light breaking through

leading me on, astray perhaps,

away out past the shrieking wind

to an old farmhouse, a fiddle,

a glass of moonshine raised to my lips.

Matthew Geden is author of Swimming to Albania.