Today's Moon Prize, the twelfth Moon Prize,* goes to Nina Rubinstein Alonso's poem "Gender Veils: Moth Women"—backdating to the full moon of August 7, 2017. This poem has wings.

Gender Veils: Moth Women     

by Nina Rubinstein Alonso

1. Veils

First time Tangier           

women in black veils                                      

wrapped like moths at night 

wings stuck to our front door

chill November signals winter

or something else meaning unclear 

tubes of dark cloth with

women folded inside

walking fear

because our voices

vibrate high notes judged 

unconvincing meaning female

wrapped in satin shawls

lower the tone try to understand

pressure of gender generations  

no school no vote own no   

property even babies belong to ‘him’ 
father brother husband

holy books distort dogma

pulled down from infinite source

as if divine wears gender.

2. Ropes

Woman in a Persian garden

arms chained to a blooming tree

no dancing nymph

no swirl of drapery

she screams she cries            

who wouldn’t go mad 

wearing cuffs of gold or iron

caged prisoner wrists

can’t move

can’t try can’t attempt

let rules from ancient days

bend before my axe.

3.    Earth Woman Sky              

                                              

She draws moth wings

dark shapes                                             

luna six spot                        

burnet grey dagger

emperor gum

blotched emerald                  

silver vagabond                   

teardrop orchid

adders mouth

adam and eve                      

fairy slipper name after name

lifting moth woman 

             

bent over hair nailed to the ground

cut free will she stand       

are her legs strong enough                     

can earth wings fly?

4.  Noises of leaden prayer

In the brass heat of day

wrapped women

fear men

carrying weapons  

                                                                                                                                                                   

fear change                                                                                                                                          
I’m one spy of many                        

writing underground pages              

whispering under my veil   

                           

pouring light                

generations forward                

we’ll get shot at 

bleed explanations

before brutes  

hearts nailed tight

as it belief makes                 

violence holy

supposedly sacred

banners wave

fraud as truth 

lies insist

trying to shout us down

with noise of funerals

undulant thunder

of leaden prayer.

* * * * *

Nina R. Alonso's work has appeared in Ibbetson Street, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, U. Mass. Review, Sumac, WomenPoems, Constant Remembrance, Cambridge Artists Cooperative, Muddy River Poetry Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Black Poppy Review, BagelBards, etc. Her stories appeared in Southern Women's Review, Broadkill Review, Tears and Laughter, etc., and most recently in Peacock Literary Review. She works with Constellations a Journal of Poetry and Fiction.

The Moon Prize ($91) is awarded once a month on the full moon for a story or poem posted in Writing In A Woman's Voice during the moon cycle period preceding a full moon. I don't want this to be competition. I simply want to share your voices. And then I want to pick one voice during a moon cycle for the prize. I fund this with 10% of my personal modest income. I wish I could pay for each and every poem or story, but I am not that rich. (Yet.) For a while I will run a few months behind with this prize—eventually I expect to catch up to the current month.

Why 91? 91 is a mystical number for me. It is 7 times 13. 13 is my favorite number. (7 isn't half bad either.) There are 13 moons in a year. I call 13 my feminist number, reasoning that anything that was declared unlucky in a patriarchal world has to be mystically excellent. Then there are 4 times 91 days in a year (plus one day, or two days in leap years), so approximately 91 days each season. In some Mayan temples there are or were 91 steps on each of four sides. Anyway, that's where the number 91 comes from, not to mention that it's in the approximate neighborhood of 100.