Beneath Two Sturgeon Moons

Beneath Two Sturgeon Moons

Mary Grace Mangano

In all the other months, they stir the mud
Of life that lurks down low, the daily bread
The bottom offers up as gift to them.
For longer than Persephone,
Amid the underbelly weeds
Of lakes, they wake each day in darkness
Until it’s August once
Again. That’s when they rise
As if to meet their God
To surface where
The supermoon
Will shine, will loom
Its face
Just close
Enough –

Dust

That beams
Sun’s light.
It turns
A little closer
While sturgeons stir
The mud. The moon
Stays hidden, too, at times.
For days, it swallows ash
Instead of light, then slowly,
Begins to circle back around
When it’s that holy month it comes
In twos – the second one is blue.
Just once in a blue moon, sturgeons ascend
To see the moon, to rise with it, to feast
On ripened light, instead of Hades’ dark.

---

Mary Grace Mangano
Writer & Educator

Mary Grace is a writer and educator from New Jersey. She received her MFA from the University of Saint Thomas in Houston and her writing has appeared in America, Dappled Things, Fare Forward, and Church Life Journal, among others. She tweets at @MG_Mangan0.

Photography by Brian Sumner