Spirit Sings Moon

by Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi

A woman made of shadow braids her hair on the ceiling.

The tree outside our window acts as mirror.

She hums and I wonder if the man beside me hears her.

Her mouth cannot be seen. Nor her nose. Nor her eyes.

She is shape against the white that in the night has become yellow.

She is land where I go and no one follows.

Her song is made of moon and without words and without rhythm.

Nothing that she does can be predicted.

Even as her hands twist in a dance they are erratic.

Her braids
are not meant
to be neat.

* * * * *

Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi is the founder of Dark Moon Poetry & Arts, a monthly series which spotlights the creative feminine and non-binary energies of North Texas. She can often be found on sidewalks using her typewriter to birth poems for strangers. She has been published in Entropy, Anthropology Now!, Bearing the Mask, and elsewhere. Her work has been featured by WFAA, KERA, the Dallas Morning News, and others. Her chapbook, Moon Woman, is forthcoming from Thoughtcrime Press.