Tuesday 28 May 2019

Tuesday Poem: "Crescent Moons" by Natalie Eilbert


When the forensic nurse inspected me, she couldn't
see the tenderness he showed me after. My walk home

squirmed sore with night. I passed the earthworms
displaced to sidewalk, their bodies apostrophed

in the sun. I did not anticipate a grief
so small, my noun of a prayer, Eat dirt to make dirt.

Took a man’s hand as he led me to cave. So long
as I breathed, I could huff violets in his dank, practice

earth’s gasp. Mother lifts daughter, daughter casts
look at camera, a killer, a stick in the mud. I hold

my own hand. When the forensic nurse inspected
me, I described the house, historic blue. Asked me

to push my hips down. Little crescent moons
where his nails stabbed into me. She gave me

the word abrasion so gently I offered consent. Blue
as the moon when I sighed wait, blue as the no of my

throat. Abrasion, possibly extended form of red.
Harm results in a starry night too, many galaxies

scraped under the nail of a heavenly body. Ah my
second earth, its wounds hardened into swallowed

prophylaxis, an injection pooling between muscle
and skin. A woke seed. Deadarmed anti-moons

aggregated. A storm can travel seeds up to 30 miles
away. They dust on the sidewalks like lost data.

He did not intend Did not. Bloody speculum
a telescope searching the angry night sky for proof.

by Natalie Eilbert

(Photo Credit: Emily Raw)

For more information about the poet, Natalie Eilbert, see:


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