The Moon-colored Flesh of Leaving
from itching, itching by Teresa Gilman
His easy singing pulls
honey through the August air, and gilds
her attention with sweat. It rusts
a scream onto bare arms, fills
her chest with moths
in the early rising darkness. A blood-tinged moon
blows straws into her dreams, and he robs
the fullness from her voice, absconds
under a firefly sky, her wilted dress moaning after him.
Teresa Gilman has had poems in The Comstock Review, Peregrine, Kalliope, Lake Affect, Illya’s Honey, and others. Gilman has two books out, Fumbling for the Flesh of Song and Roses in the Sand, Your Hand, both from FootHills Publishing. She has received first prize in the CNY National Penwomen’s Poetry contest, the Abacus and Rose poetry contest (Museum of Science and Technology, Syracuse, N.Y.) and the Rebecca Eddy poetry contest (Canastota Library, Canastota, N.Y.). In Fall 2007, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for “Metal Artist”. She lives in Syracuse, New York.
