Outside the Moon

If I were a man, I’d have all the moonlight outside my body

              This is the size and shape I make now outside the moon

Once breastless, hairless, she grew and threw light again and again to girl me

              Woman my wild mother hair, sculpt white wires threading through corkscrews

Ovaries two hands drumming a dance I struggled to learn, no sure footing

              Ridiculous 80s perms and spray gave way to one clip unlocking my eyes

Moon shadows shifting over and through transparent lungs, guts, liver

              Two planets set inside a widened, wizened face, creased rays, relentless shades

Like trying to ski in flat light, surprised, spine shocked by unexpected bumps

              Convex concave confusion, light warping inner contours out of control

A rhythm once emerged, a role, bleeding not bleeding, blood my friend, never foe

Ad infinitum, I thought, to assist my surrender to motherhood

Until the moon of me, strange woman man, caught up to my body’s soul

              Glorious tomboy, Mom called me, riding off on the dirtbike she bought

Its blue cross bar, sturdy, dangerous, between and beneath my unshaved legs

Pumping furiously past a pocked moonscape, recovering

With gratitude to poet Juana de Ibarbourou for the opening phrase