The Moon of Long Nights

by Stacy Kidd

At first, whatever drought carries the fiddlebacks
inside from the salt. The old women are speaking about jasmine.

An imagined June. Are telling you what they know
about the night. That the woman

who once held the sky’s hands against her dress whispered
drowning when the sun washed red across the river—

they say she fled from backwoods to bathe in a bowl of fire.
But in truth, she walked slowly with a shawl around her shoulders,

arms folded, her husband watching from a window in the house.


Stacy Kidd recently completed an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas where she held the Walton Fellowship in Poetry. Currently a Lecturer in English at Oklahoma State University, she has published most recently in DMQ Review and Verse Daily.