Moon in the Window by Dorianne Laux

MARGINALIA • SKIP TO THE POEM

1.
Isn’t it exhausting to write about the moon, someone asked. I should say that I am asked this all the time. It’s not surprising, for I come from a long line of poets who have looked up most nights and thought, yes, I will write about the moon.

2.
Should I write about wars. Or the scab of your life you kept picking on until you are bleeding again. Should I write about hunger, or the fire in my blood one night I marched with hundreds of people, screaming about injustice to the dead of night. What would you have me do, I wanted to say, in return for beauty?

Moon in the Window
Dorianne Laux

I wish I could say I was the kind of child
who watched the moon from her window,
would turn toward it and wonder.
I never wondered. I read. Dark signs
that crawled toward the edge of the page.
It took me years to grow a heart
from paper and glue. All I had
was a flashlight, bright as the moon,
a white hole blazing beneath the sheets.

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This poem appeared in Facts About the Moon by Dorianne Laux, published by W.W. Norton Company, 2007. Shared here with profound gratitude.

Read more works by Dorianne Laux • Find books by this poet • Or view my library 

Explore poems in pursuit of: transformation • solitude • the self • Or browse the index

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