The fireworks shut their mouths
& the moon rises red & ripe
We hardly believe it at first that bright
dinner plate pushing its shoulder
above the water line winking
at us through the trees
Your eyes preen awe
from between my teeth & all that red
spills out between us
You wonder how it tastes
so you guide me by the neck
until our lips unfold consume
By the time we look up again
the moon has returned
to itself high & white
the feeling in our throats now
illegible How can anything
be so close disappear so simply
Dana Alsamsam is a first generation Syrian-American from Chicago and is currently based in Boston where she works in arts development. A Lambda Literary fellow, she received her MFA in Poetry from Emerson College where she was the Editor-in-Chief of Redivider and Senior Editorial Assistant at Ploughshares. She is the author of a chapbook, (in)habit (tenderness lit, 2018), and her poems are published or forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, North American Review, The Shallow Ends, The Offing, Muzzle Magazine, BOOTH, The Common, and others.