Six poems by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) is the author of three poetry collections: 40 WEEKS (YesYes Books, 2023), Don’t Touch the Bones (Lost Horse Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize, and The Many Names for Mother, winner of the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019) and finalist for the Jewish Book Award. She is currently working on a poetry collection as well as a book of linked lyric essays, both of which grapple with raising a neurodiverse child with a disabled partner under the shadow of the war in Ukraine, Julia's birthplace. She is the author of the model poem for "Dear Ukraine": A Global Community Poem. Her poems have appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. Julia just relocated with her family to Columbus, Ohio and in fall 2023, she will join Denison University as Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing.
Why write another poem about the moon?
Because it saves me
from turning
to my mother
& my children,
body & face
unmade, unrocked
by light.
What are we
if not the thing
we run from?
The moon broke
out earth’s belly
& kept on
drifting, tugging
known waters—tide
too familiar
a story. But the molten
below is her’s too,
rock that sways
all others.
The stone
we believe
is made of light.
Why keep turning
her dark? Why
keep naming her
woman, expecting
she break
from its weight?
Why write another poem about the moon?
Because we are as far as we will ever be
from the sun & Jupiter is as close
as it will ever be to Saturn
& for a moment they will appear
as one bright star in moonless
solstice & children everywhere will wish
and wake believing and some
won’t wake at all and angels
are what some people
believe in I tell my son
when he asks about
Cirafini park & the children
cast in stone there
surrounded by iron and strung-up
light and broken candy canes
& he asks if I believe & I
don’t & he says he’ll believe
if that's all it takes
to get wings & it is
as long a dark
as it will ever be
& solstice has so little
to do with light & everything
with standing still long enough
to appear frozen, the sun
as far south as my son’s finger
trying to touch horizon, sol’nishko,
I call him, little sun & he calls out
to the sky as though he knows
every day that follows
we move closer to light
even if we don't believe
in anything
but darkening distance.
Why write another poem about the moon
when we spent three hours in the social services disability doctor's office
away from any sky? Some people have been here all day, the receptionist says.
My husband & congested seven-month-old. Is that your baby crying?
Someone leaving asked, an hour after our scheduled appointment time. I hope
you have food for her. I resist the urge to point at my waxing breasts, simply say,
yes. They call us back to check his vitals. They call us back to have him undress.
Do you need an attendant to help you undress?
What do you need? Is not a question
on any of the forms or in anyone's mouth. He doesn't want me to help, leans
against the wall or falls, his head shaking from what they've named a new
autoimmune neurological disorder. The baby coughs & smiles, snot
running from her nose, green the way my husband tells me the Chicago river has turned
from the dye they pour into her mouth for saint Patty's every year, the day we first kissed
in another city. I'm pushing the baby back & forth in the office, her eyes red, wanting sleep
but the fluorescent lights are too much for both of them. My husband hides his eyes in his hands.
The doctor begins the exam: Walk from the door back to the table. Good.
Bend over. Good.
We’re going to get you through this.
I'm going to check your reflexes. Jumpy, but good.
The needle will prick but not hurt. Do you feel it the same on both sides? Good.
I’ve brought you this teddy bear. Tie his shoelaces. Good.
Resist my fingers. Again. You’ve got good strength.
He gets exhausted holding the baby, I say, his arms and body collapse, the doctor seems
empathetic. I’m going to do what I can, he says, looks at the list of all his diagnoses. You’ve got a lot
of things there. The baby keeps crying. I try to tell him there’s nothing my husband would rather do
than go back to the shop & work with his hands. Come home smelling of oak & cedar,
tired enough to play make-believe with our son. Tired enough to make love to me. Rate
your daily pain on a scale of 1 to 10. The answer: when I was working it used to be a daily 3 or 4, but now,
the doctor doesn't let him finish, That won't do. We must put at least 7 to 9. Sound about right? He nods
or keeps shaking his head, eyes barely open, recovering from the physical.
Does it wax & wane? The doctor asks.
He has a hard time understanding such lunar language. I resist the urge
to answer for him. He means the pain, I clarify, keep pushing the stroller. It's always there, he says.
The moon is too, I think,
even when we don't see it.
I write another poem about the moon
when every streak of white
rippled by metal-winged machine
my son names comet not plane
and reading about monarch butterflies
he wishes for wings
like anyone who's ever looked up
because the sky is only torn
in daylight and the sky
is every little boy trying
to hold his flight inside
and I tell him these trails
are clouds not comet tails
but just last night a meteor
exploded over the horizon
two states north and he wants
to see it and hear the body-rattling
boom the sky ripped out
of darkness by something strong enough
to stone and shine because
what is every little boy
if not speeding oxygen and iron
fractaled flame turned solid enough
to name and tear the sky
because my little boy once asked me
for the moon and learned
how much I cannot give him
Why write another poem about the moon?
because hunger
is its own howling
wolved and starved
for January to end
because it is a month
longer than cold and light
because waiting for snow
or wane is just that
waiting because the full
wolf stays hidden
teeth in the gut
of another
sky full of hunger
because full and empty
come from the same moon
because my belly won't wax again
but every moon I see
is what I carried
and every woman howls
a glow she can
no longer keep inside
Why write another poem about the moon?
because you wake exhausted of your own
body and its sea as far as mother
from tranquility because the moon too
can't refuse her tether in every sky
as your children scream for you and moon
as though your bodies were both
soft and certain and your daughter's
skin is speckled strawberry
from frozen fruit and some
mysterious rash between her spine
and hairline and you think how beautiful
the rise and fall of her dusted surface
because when the new moon moves
between Earth and sun she leaves
a tail of sodium and our
planet pinches that stream invisible
because we are wrapped in salt
and moon is moo is milk is me is me meaning
every moon poem is your way of making
moon into Mama and back again
stone to shine to disappear without
your children ever knowing you were gone