INCISED MOON


Once I would have woken at three
to see our planet's shadow
carving a black crescent.

To watch her face disappear
only to return, round and red
as though hiding aroused her.

But after the year
of night wakings,
breasts full as the moon

I don't want to see
the numbers on the digital clock
creeping unavoidably toward day.

I hear she was coy, anyway --
did the striptease
behind a billowing sheet of cloud.

Today's NaPoWriMo prompt invited us to write poems inspired by the names of the seashells on the list. I was drawn immediately to the shell named "incised moon," and thinking of the moon being incised or carved-away made me think of the recent lunar eclipse.

(My friend David and I wrote something about the eclipse -- about the tetrad of eclipses, on four Jewish holidays in a row, and how we might interpret them -- which is online here: Four eclipses; four worlds; four holidays; four holy perspective shifts.)

If anyone knows what an incised moon seashell looks like, link me? I tried searching but haven't been able to find a photo, and now I'm curious...