Samantha DeFlitch

November Eclipse

The bite, some scientists call it. The moment
when the edges of our world meet our moon. 

I am barefoot at the bite. Tiled floor, cold,
in a third-floor walkup in early November 

I make my life. I imagine remarkable things
just beyond the boundaries of the window- 

pane where the moon is swallowed, whole:
a saw-whet owl stares wide-eyed at the sky 

from her perch in next-door ash trees.
My neighbor in her nightgown 

watches me, watching the going-moon.
Mothman, lost in the dark, finds love 

in a flicking Sunoco sign. What if this is it?
Our loneliness is amplified in what we share: 

This backyard, fenceless and sprawling.
That gas station down the street. One moon.

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Samantha DeFlitch is the author of Confluence (Broadstone Books, 2021). A National Poetry Series finalist, her work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Colorado Review, The Missouri Review and On the Seawall, among others. She lives in New Hampshire.