Issue > Poetry

Dana Elkun

Dana Elkun received her MFA from University of Washington. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, MARGIE, Poetry Northwest, Puerto del Sol, and VerseDaily. Her chapbook, Black Box Theater as Abandoned Zoo, won the Concrete Wolf Poetry Prize in 2009. Dana lives in Minneapolis and teaches poetry at The Loft.

Tonight

The moon is just a hint of herself,
the window in our bedroom open
to the thinnest strand of night.
The heater is heating the dresser
and the sleeping cat
but not my right foot
which has kicked its way out.
I swatch a match against its box,
accept slow smoke,
the candle's lack of romance.
The expanse of our bed
so unlike the desert sky
with its scrim of pink at dusk
and later, its heroes:
sculptor, wolf, chained lady.