After Shocks Of The Full Moon by Pat West
1
Monthly I cycle, crave food, indulge a feeding frenzy,
still feel starved. Hormones hang heavy upside down
like stalactites. I suppress the urge to cry over nothing—
everything overwhelms until the moon moves.
2
Midnight the moon glides behind a fifty-foot Douglas
fir and I expect ET to cycle across the sky on his way
home. This planet feels foreign to me without you,
I talk to the moon. You hear me.
3
Howling keeps packs of wolves together. It’s their glue.
One night I will run with them, lift my long, low pitched
howl up to the moon and connect to my pack—
even separated by great distance, they know my sound.
Pat West calls Portland, OR home for now. Her work appears in Labyrinth: Poems and Prose, An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind: Poets on 9/11, Listening to the Birth of Crystals, and various webzines.
