GOODNIGHT, MINI-MOON

by Shawn Aveningo-Sanders

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News

Soon an asteroid, captured in our gravity,

will pirouette our planet like a little moon.

I picture the new satellite wearing a tutu 

with pink tights wrinkled at the knees.

Wait, do moons have knees? Maybe

Mother Luna will teach her new prodigy 

how to pose for the light, waxing & waning

through each phase of its two-month stint,

orbiting around our world. 

 

                              When my girls were little,

I taught them the five basic poses of ballet.

Fifth position was always the toughest—

toes pointed out, toe-to-heel-to-toe-to-heel,

rounding arms up above your head to form 

a full moon. And like their short-lived interest

in leotards and ballet slippers, this mini moon

will soon grow tired too, of twirling around

in the same old circles. She will break free

to see what’s in store, to explore the unknown,

chart her own course, no matter how bleak 

or cold it may seem to me. 

 

Author’s Note: According to an article in The New York Times, an asteroid, 2024 PT5, will be captured in Earth’s gravity and circle our planet from Sept 29 thru Nov 25, effectively becoming a small moon, until it breaks free and flies off into space. 

Shawn Aveningo-Sanders’ poems have appeared worldwide in literary journals including  ONE ART, Naugatuck River Review, Eunoia Review, The New Verse News, Poemeleon,  About Place Journal, and Snapdragon, to name a few. She is the author of What She Was Wearing, and her manuscript Pockets was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest. She’s co-founder of The Poetry Box press and managing editor of The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three and Nana to one darling baby girl. She shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon.

SPINNING

by Shawn Aveningo-Sanders

The latest weather dome has uncovered us from its blanket of unrelenting heat. At last, I can walk the trails near my house and not need the inhaler in my pocket. I let the laundry pile up in order to save the grid for more important things—lamplight, fans, the refrigerator’s hum. I’m wearing a T-shirt I haven’t worn in almost ten years with its rainbowed Love is Love on soft heather gray and Legalize Gay on the back. I still remember crying that day the courts ruled in favor of my daughters’ future weddings. I imagine the celebration in the hearts of Black Americans when the Civil Rights Act was signed, a year before I was born. I was too young to understand the ruling in ’73 but have been grateful for rights afforded to our sisters, our mothers, our friends. Now the Ferris Wheel is spinning in reverse. I watch the unraveling of progress in the name of pseudo-freedom, mock patriotism and the so-called good ole days. And here we stand, hand in hand, left wondering which car will be stuck at the top, once this ride comes to an end.

carnival tickets 

scattered like wildflower seeds

we wait for the rain

Shawn Aveningo-Sanders’ poems have appeared worldwide in literary journals including Calyx, ONE ART, Eunoia Review, Blue Heron Review, Tule Review, Amsterdam Quarterly, About Place Journal, and Snapdragon, to name a few. She is the author of What She Was Wearing, a chapbook that reveals her #metoo secret after forty years. She’s co-founder of The Poetry Box press and managing editor of The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three amazing humans and Nana to one darling baby girl. She shares the creative life with her husband in Oregon.