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Alice Pettway

So many stories about the moon

about swallowing the white pill

                                                      until it dissolves

our minds,

until we wash ourselves with it,

sudsing the pale lye circle

along our arms

              and legs, about hair dark

                             and matted at our elbows

and the need to chew clean through all the things

we were too afraid to eat before,

                                                          about women

and blood and the driftwood

of desire floating

up from the California coast

to northern waters

                                   where the moon fishes it out

and lights a blaze

colorless in the night.

                So many stories

                about the days that shrink

into almost nothing

and the nights that hang

the weight of the moon

at the end of a long string

                                             swinging back and forth

                             above the mountains,

cratered cheeks gnawing​

on themselves until

flesh falls away and only

                        the dark remains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First published in Dawn Chorus, Salmon Poetry, Ireland.

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