Moon From the Porch Poem by Annie Finch

Moon has dusks for walls,
October's days for a floor,
crickets for rooms, windy halls.
Only one night is her door.

When I was thirteen she found me,
spiralled into my blood like a hive.
I stood on a porch where she wound me
for the first time, tight and alive,

till my body flooded to find her:
to know I would not be alone
as I moved through the tides that don't bind her
into womanhood, like a flung stone.

With each curve that waxed into fullness
I grew to her, ready and wild.
I filled myself up like her priestess.
I emptied myself like her child.

Flooding, ready, and certain,
I hid her—full, fallow, or frail—
beneath each long summer's rich curtain.
It covered her face—the thin grail

that delivers me now. Now I'm with her.
All cast shadows come home.
I stand in these shadows to kiss her;
I spin in her cool, calming storm.

Now as I move through my own beauty
and my shadow grows deeper than blood,
oh triple, oh goddess, sustain me
with your light's simple opening hood.