On finding my grandmother
It’s always that time between night
and morning anymore. When no one thinks
about bellies or how to make friends at work.
I find myself here, inspecting how a peek of
my waist might appear if I lifted my arms (just so).
But today is not a day to be perceived. Today is
a day to commune with my grandmother
in this in-between time, to find her in
every shade of purple.
On finding you in the moonlight
As if everything shifted one degree to the left, off kilter;
like being pushed on a merry-go-round with one eye open,
watching the sky shake and then blur. How tentative this
space is, like the awe-filled acknowledgement
of conceding my crush out loud.
How softly the moon considers the shape of you–
touching you, neck down to belly, measuring your length
in dandelion stems, in candy wrappers.
Listening to you breathe next to me,
I’ll stay as long as you want.
Mira Mason-Reader is a writer and dancer living in Oregon. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing program from University College Cork, her work is forthcoming in the New York Quarterly and has appeared in Shō Poetry Journal, Grand Little Things, Cordella Press, ELKE, The Walrus Literary Magazine, and Voices and Visions Journal, among others.