The Moon from the Porch
- The Moon from the Porch
Moon has dusks for walls,Octobers days for a floor,crickets for rooms, windy halls.Only one night is her door.
When I was thirteen she found me,spiraled into my blood like a hive.I stood on a porch where she wound mefor the first time. My tight and alive
body flooded to find her,to know I would not be alonewhile I moved through tides that don't bind herinto womanhood like a flung stone.
With each waxing curve into fullnessI grew with her, ready, wild;I filled myself up like her priestess;I emptied myself like her child.
Flooding, ready, and certain,I hid her—full, fallow, or frail—beneath my long summer's rich curtainwhich covered her face, the thin grail
that delivers me now. I am with her.All cast shadows come home.I stand in these shadows to kiss her;I spin in her cool, calming storm.
Now as I move through my own beautyand my shadow goes deeper than blood,oh triple, oh goddess, sustain mewith your lights simple opening hood. [End Page 140]
Annie Finch's books of poetry are Calendars (2003), shortlisted for the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year; The Encyclopedia of Scotland (2004); Eve (1997); and a translation of the poems of Louise Labé (2005). Her opera libretto Marina: A Captive Spirit, based on the life of Marina Tsvetaeva, was produced in 2003. Her other books include several anthologies and a collection of essays, The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self (2005). She directs the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine.
