You woke me up so I could see
my first lunar eclipse. You didn’t know
your daughter was a sleepwalker.
Come morning, I didn’t remember,
so you told me about it like a chapter
in my story books. You said I liked it.
I imagined the moon like a mosquito
bite, and your guiding hand pointed
up at the warm night sky. Years later,
my period came and stayed for weeks
at a time, a loss so heavy and bright,
it leeched the sun from my skin.
Dad took out our bathroom trash,
bag whisked up like a dirty ghost.
You took me aside and taught me
how to wrap the tampons with paper,
so he won’t see how our bodies bleed
and survive, how we conjure
constellations from blackred galaxies.
Nobody wants to see that, you said,
like sleepwalking. Like your mother
showed you this eclipse before.
