Luna/Because
- Luna/Because
Luna/Luna says the biggest problem is darkness,that it's her disability—I have to be home by 8.
Because 15 years ago just like yesterday,the rapist broke into her house while she sleptand started punching my lights out.
And even though she needs youto hold her at the soup kitchen,touch is a traitor
and now night is a placewhere the razor blade tricks herinto its slick caresses
because men alwaysseem to want something and they nevermean what they say. Because [End Page 54]
she wants to show you her scars:a galaxy of stars up and down her arms.Last week she got a new
permanent. To feel like a woman—but she thinks her darkhair makes her look depressed
and today she has a couponto make herself blonde.She's grateful for the Dollar Tree,
so she can buy somethingto make herself feel pretty.Is that too much to ask? She asks anyway,
because the disability checkonly goes so far.Night keeps coming back. [End Page 55]
Jennifer Burd received an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of Washington in 1994. She has worked as an instructional designer, editor, and newspaper reporter. Currently, when not dancing, taking photographs, or thinking about metaphor, she edits books for High/Scope Press in Ypsilanti, MI. Burd's poems have appeared in The Bellingham Review, Southern Poetry Review, Eclipse, Modern Haiku, and the anthology Nobody's Orphan Child, among other publications. She resides in Ypsilanti, MI.
