by Jenifer Browne Lawrence

You can’t swallow
the moon without changing

your shape. Sugar
moon, you called it,

but I opened my mouth
and knew it was salt,

hanging in the east window
above the topmost branch.

Let it in and your heart
will list to the west, headlong

into the Pacific, hard waves
scattering your light.

Jenifer Browne Lawrence is the author of “Grayling” (Perugia Press), and “One Hundred Steps from Shore” (Blue Begonia Press). Awards include the Perugia Press Prize, the Orlando Poetry Prize, and the James Hearst Poetry Prize.

Her work appears in Bracken, Cincinnati Review, The Coachella Review, Los Angeles Review, Narrative, North American Review, and elsewhere. Say hello on twitter @JeniferBrowne