by Crystal Sidell
Let me tell you
about the moonlight –
how it is to lie in bed across
the unstained quilt, exposed
to nocturnal rhythms through naked
panes, waiting for the pregnant
moon to unhook her luminary limbs
and slip through sliver
of space between glass and sill.
I hunger for this moment –
the cool caress on hot skin,
the celestial lifting. Like a swallow
unfolding its wings, I become
weightless when pale blue umbilici
fuse to inner joints and seams.
Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Saturate.
Reaching elemental depths, I dream
into the ether, swim with animalcules
and molecules, open my lungs to
the midnight star-sea and breathe.
One. Two. Three. Elastic-free.
Gliding through space, I gather
salt sparks with firm snaps of my beak
curved and wide and pelican-deep.
Unpeeled pupils pierce navy-purple clouds.
Miles contract to inches as I fly in search
of home. Eyes and skin so comforting,
so familiar to my bones.
You are confetti bursting from the cosmos.
How we will dance as one above
the world, tracing Corona Borealis,
Gemini, Virgo. Only to be two
when dawn spreads its rays;
leaving me to count the days until
the moon again is full.
A native Floridian, Crystal Sidell grew up playing with toads in the rain and indulging in speculative fiction. She holds a master of arts in both English and library & information science, moderates two creative writing groups, and has reviewed books for the Florida Library Youth Program. Her work has appeared/is forthcoming in 34 Orchard, Apparition Lit, diet milk, F&SF, opia, Orion’s Belt, Strange Horizons, Under Her Eye, and others. You can find her on Twitter @sidellwrites
crystalsidell.wixsite.com/mysite
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