A Curious Moon

By Kaylee Baucom

Virgo 𖤓 | Sagittarius ⏾ | Aries ↑

“I’ll eat you up beloved, I’ll swallow you whole,
you’re the moon, and I’m the dark sky who holds.”
He talks in verses like this,
all honey-tongued promises but no kiss,
and I’m alone for another monumental solar eclipse.
But he’s the moon and I’m the sun.
I always shine and never hide,
while he escapes in crescent shapes
absorbing my light into cold lunar landscapes.
My man is a moon
and every two days he behaves in new ways,
changing signs, transgressing lines,
reflecting my shine but never matching mine.
He’s a new mutation every lunation,
and our celestial polarities mirror
the universe’s most common situation.
A woman shines before a man who hides.
We’re two swirling cosmic circles,
fated by design never to align.
My poetic phrases gleam like gloss on his lips,
and I’m alone for another monumental solar eclipse.

Kaylee Baucom lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she is a Professor of English at The College of Southern Nevada.