In Praise of the Moon and Earth As Tidally Locked Bodies in Synchronous Rotation
by Quinn Forlini
Your period came today — yay!
When you saw the faint stains
after your evening jog, you thought,
This calls for a celebration —
and commenced the festivities,
donning traditional garments:
your favorite nude bra
and pink cotton underwear
for comfort and ultimate feminine
exaltation. And you love the sound
a fresh pad makes when you peel
off the wax paper, unwrap it
like a birthday present, the one
you asked for. You stuck it
snugly to that lining strip
as if to say, Come forth,
here’s a soft spot, I’m ready!
Now you bask in your half-
nakedness, leave the backyard
window-shade open for the late sun
just pouring in, and you’ve bought
new daffodils like fallopian tubes
spreading wide from a glass vase, wet
stems trying to soak up what they need.
How wonderful to be prepared
like this — you could’ve almost guessed
it would be today. As you jogged
you felt your pulse quicken, heat
in your abdomen. Part of the fun
is not-quite-knowing, an advantage
of not being a twenty-eight-day
kind of girl — that slight surprise
bringing you back to your touchable
flesh, those cryptic little happenings
inside you’ve learned about
in fragments, like catching glimpses
of your life in tarot cards. You rode
an Icelandic pony when you were
fifteen and yes, you were afraid
of horses, but you wanted
to know how it felt to straddle
the back of another beating animal,
then get off and stand again,
that vast other-breath still
a quiver in your legs.
