Bent Alaska is pleased to welcome a new contributor, Annie Muse. With her poem “I Heard the Moon Call,” we’re also pleased to inaugurate Bent Alaska’s greater inclusion of the creative writing of LGBTQA Alaskans.

I Heard the Moon Call
A Song for My Trans Sisters

by Annie Muse

I heard the moon call for the first time this morning
three quarters full.
I felt her pull in my body, gravitational, orbital,
harmonic, low down and deep.
Where have I been?, I asked.
How did I miss you?
“I’ve waited,” she said.
“Clouds hid me,” she said, “I was lost in noise.
“I’ve drawn you, I’ve drawn you — release your awful pain.
“You knew my tides but fought them. You fought them. You fought them and me.”
Why did I wait so long?
Her voice caressed, murmuring, soft and undulating, she told me she’d called me all along,
through her every phase,
but I was numb.
Now, stronger, I feel her rhythm, her Mother’s song,
“Hear me now, my child,
I’ve known you all along….
How long will you wait?
Is it two months, is it three?
only two months yet to go?
Annie, sweet Annie…
Is it two months… is it three?”

— Annie Muse

[July 2011]

Poem © 2011 Annie Muse. Photo by Melissa S. Green