Hello Friends,
Yesterday’s poem finished with a scattering of pill bottles, and today we’re going to read one more medication-induced poem. Today’s selection by poet Diannely Antigua can be found in the December 2024 issue of Poetry Magazine. The epigraph “After Joshua Jennifer Espinoza” may be a reference to inspiration from that poet’s poem “The Moon is Trans.”
Thank you again for celebrating poetry month with me!
— Ællen
Yesterday’s poem finished with a scattering of pill bottles, and today we’re going to read one more medication-induced poem. Today’s selection by poet Diannely Antigua can be found in the December 2024 issue of Poetry Magazine. The epigraph “After Joshua Jennifer Espinoza” may be a reference to inspiration from that poet’s poem “The Moon is Trans.”
Thank you again for celebrating poetry month with me!
— Ællen
The Moon Is on Wellbutrin
After Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
Why else would she lift her shirt every night
to show the world her one milky
breast? My sister says Wellbutrin
sparked her slut era. I say, I don’t need
Wellbutrin for that. The moon used to be on
Zoloft, before trying Prozac, before adding
Klonopin to her lunar chemistry. The moon is on
Propranolol. She’s an anxious bitch,
left to borrow light from the brightest
orb around. What she wouldn’t do
to be the sun, allowed to come
out during the day when the humans are awake
and buying things, and she—just a sliver
of existence, the distance of thirty Earths
away from touch. Who could be this cruel
to leave her wanting? The father was
probably an asshole, the mother some
aloof star. She’s been used by too many
singers, painters, and scientists, too
many witches and hipsters who absorb
her essence from bowls of water
left outside overnight. I’ve used the moon
in this poem, metaphor, hunk of rock.
I’m sorry little moon, my moonly
moon. You know, the moon can be
both super and blue. Tonight, let’s take
our moon-shaped pills together. Let me
carry the weight of you.
■
After Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
Why else would she lift her shirt every night
to show the world her one milky
breast? My sister says Wellbutrin
sparked her slut era. I say, I don’t need
Wellbutrin for that. The moon used to be on
Zoloft, before trying Prozac, before adding
Klonopin to her lunar chemistry. The moon is on
Propranolol. She’s an anxious bitch,
left to borrow light from the brightest
orb around. What she wouldn’t do
to be the sun, allowed to come
out during the day when the humans are awake
and buying things, and she—just a sliver
of existence, the distance of thirty Earths
away from touch. Who could be this cruel
to leave her wanting? The father was
probably an asshole, the mother some
aloof star. She’s been used by too many
singers, painters, and scientists, too
many witches and hipsters who absorb
her essence from bowls of water
left outside overnight. I’ve used the moon
in this poem, metaphor, hunk of rock.
I’m sorry little moon, my moonly
moon. You know, the moon can be
both super and blue. Tonight, let’s take
our moon-shaped pills together. Let me
carry the weight of you.
■