Red Moon

You said God is this close, then slapped your
palm across your eyes. I thought about how
your hand was not only too close to see,  
but also preventing your sight. I know  
that metaphors aren’t always so neat.  

Imagining your pain seven years ago would have 
sunk me. Then, like an ant within a cocoa  
leaf nestled between bits of sand and twig, 
I curled in my closet, like you did when your heart 
broke, which you told me in a poem.  

Signs of persistence: a wedding dress made of 
bandages, wisdom teeth budding despite war, and 
an army nurse who saved two soldiers on opposing sides.
Her explanation: there is not one heart for love and 
one for hatred. There is only one heart for both.  

Facts I know because my parents told me:  
prayer may not pour water on parched fields
but it can nourish a dry soul, there is pleasure in
falling at God’s feet; time is precious, look forward,
say please, and even more, pray thank you.  

We have spun out and wandered back, but all I
think of now is the night in stained glass, the same
night we stared at a red moon from the roof of a
laboratory, the various rooves climbing, and the 
certainty with which I know you will recover is the 
certainty with which I remember: sharp, exploding, sure. 

Serena Alagappan is a recent graduate of Princeton University, where she studied comparative literature and creative writing. She currently works as a poetry editor for the Oxford Review of Books and is pursuing an MSt in World Literatures in English as a Rhodes Scholar. Her writing has appeared in the American Journal of Poetry, Scientific American, the Oprah Magazine, Hobart, Porridge Magazine, and is forthcoming in the Colorado Review, West Trade Review, and Stand Magazine.

Artwork by Simone Hadebe