Isaac Ginsberg Miller

Isaac Ginsberg Miller‘s poetry appears or is forthcoming in journals such as Callaloo, Colorado Review, Sonora Review, The Shallow Ends, Tupelo Quarterly, and Vinyl. His chapbook Stopgap won The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review Chapbook Contest, and is forthcoming in 2019. He is a PhD candidate in African American Studies at Northwestern University, where he is also a member of the Poetry and Poetics Graduate Cluster.

The Moon Is a Moan

over quiet winter
streets paved with unplowed

snow. inside our bed, the cheap
mattress reveals a furrow

down its middle that we roll
towards. we fall asleep turned

away from each other's face,
watching the peeling walls.

winter of loud words
raised against ceilings,

slammed doors and snow
boots. better cold than in

love when this is what love will
do: turn the neighborhood

into a moonscape
where our voices echo

until a call (miraculous)
is heard and we drive

to the midnight hospital. she
is learning to deliver babies. this,

her first. she hurries into the opening
hospital doors. i meander the car

through streets of steaming
manhole covers, veer away from

potholes, follow the moon down MLK,
Grand River, Joy Road. until,

past downtown's glow, the moon
becomes the mouth of a mother

giving birth. moon of sacrament,
moon of departure.

train whistle in the distance, or
wind. does it make a difference?

the moon grows full
before it's extinguished.