Michelle Bitting
Leah Eclipsed
I waited under the sky
for the shade to pass over.
I wanted the sun to slip
inside the swollen moon
as I'd dreamed he’d
one day enter me.
Spiral, corona, facula
flaring to life within us.
Waves licking the cinnabar shore:
our corollas lit with honey, eaten.
Wings of a Monarch,
a child's cheek and
the flutter of wild things
as the sky unravels itself
and breaks, fields flooding:
a pink flame at dawn.
Never mind what deception costs,
the night holds its stars
like a girl her jewels
in a box of secret light.
Sparks she rummages,
days when there's nothing left
but the drone of bees:
plains of buzzing heat.
I reach for a gem,
finger the sleek edge
that rubies skin
when touched just right.
And remember how it felt
to let that weight drape down:
veil of dark water, love
trembling over - shape
of a man entering
each hidden part,
making a diamond
fire within me.
Then putting it out.
Michelle Bitting’s third collection is The Couple Who Fell to Earth named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016. She has published poems in The American Poetry Review, Narrative, Prairie Schooner, The New York Times, Vinyl Poetry, Plume, Diode, the Paris-American, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review (“Renga for Obama”), AJP, Thrush, Raleigh Review, Verdad, Fjords and others. Poems have appeared on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes, (including this year’s Best of the Net 2017 from Thrush Poetry Journal) and recently, The Pablo Neruda, American Literary Review and Tupelo Quarterly Poetry contests. Visit her website here: https://www.michellebitting.com/
Return to January 2018 Edition
I waited under the sky
for the shade to pass over.
I wanted the sun to slip
inside the swollen moon
as I'd dreamed he’d
one day enter me.
Spiral, corona, facula
flaring to life within us.
Waves licking the cinnabar shore:
our corollas lit with honey, eaten.
Wings of a Monarch,
a child's cheek and
the flutter of wild things
as the sky unravels itself
and breaks, fields flooding:
a pink flame at dawn.
Never mind what deception costs,
the night holds its stars
like a girl her jewels
in a box of secret light.
Sparks she rummages,
days when there's nothing left
but the drone of bees:
plains of buzzing heat.
I reach for a gem,
finger the sleek edge
that rubies skin
when touched just right.
And remember how it felt
to let that weight drape down:
veil of dark water, love
trembling over - shape
of a man entering
each hidden part,
making a diamond
fire within me.
Then putting it out.
Michelle Bitting’s third collection is The Couple Who Fell to Earth named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2016. She has published poems in The American Poetry Review, Narrative, Prairie Schooner, The New York Times, Vinyl Poetry, Plume, Diode, the Paris-American, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review (“Renga for Obama”), AJP, Thrush, Raleigh Review, Verdad, Fjords and others. Poems have appeared on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes, (including this year’s Best of the Net 2017 from Thrush Poetry Journal) and recently, The Pablo Neruda, American Literary Review and Tupelo Quarterly Poetry contests. Visit her website here: https://www.michellebitting.com/
Return to January 2018 Edition