fingernail moon elline lipkin
This moon is a thin cusp that cups the vast black,
a silver rim thimbling stars into strewn seams.
It's demi-gape is a moaned O, a half gasp,
a belly pressed flat to hold its small store.
Below, the dark still spills its rich infinite,
inside, its low curve contracts around all it still doesn't have.
a silver rim thimbling stars into strewn seams.
It's demi-gape is a moaned O, a half gasp,
a belly pressed flat to hold its small store.
Below, the dark still spills its rich infinite,
inside, its low curve contracts around all it still doesn't have.
pleine lune elline lipkin
“What if the moon was never a beautiful woman?” -- Katha Pollitt
The fat moon hangs full,
incandescing on a low black shelf,
a lambent hull ambering
the day’s dregs into quiet scree.
It is the milk maid’s loosed button,
wandering eye of a little girl lost,
sister o’mine while we pace 28,
Cleopatra’s last uncrushed pearl.
A nacreous wrap around the stars’
least grit, secret teeth enameling
intruding dust to whitened stone.
The moon is bald and shiny tonight,
fattened with longing, a thrown pill sent
into orbit by the cabinet’s flung door.
The fat moon hangs full,
incandescing on a low black shelf,
a lambent hull ambering
the day’s dregs into quiet scree.
It is the milk maid’s loosed button,
wandering eye of a little girl lost,
sister o’mine while we pace 28,
Cleopatra’s last uncrushed pearl.
A nacreous wrap around the stars’
least grit, secret teeth enameling
intruding dust to whitened stone.
The moon is bald and shiny tonight,
fattened with longing, a thrown pill sent
into orbit by the cabinet’s flung door.
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Elline Lipkin is a poet, nonfiction writer, and academic. She teaches poetry for Writing Workshops Los Angeles and affiliates with UCLA's Center for the Study of Women. Her first book, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland for the Kore Press First Book Award. She hopes 2019 will be a deeply creative year for all.