Self-Portrait as Moon Clichés

---

Some say I am Artemis the Huntress

and I wax like a candle dipped over and over

 

and I wane until I disappear. I pull the oceans

toward me and then push them away. I am cold

 

and dark in shadow and almost transparent

by day. I bring scores of children and make wolves

 

howl at midnight. Full, I am wise. Quartered, I am

nearly empty. Halved, I am ambiguous. When I am

 

crescent, I am nearly new, ready to be filled.

---

Anne Graue is the author of Fig Tree in Winter (Dancing Girl Press), and has published work in journals and anthologies including Westchester Review, Red Paint Hill Poetry Journal, the Plath Poetry Project, Random Sample Review, The Book of Donuts (Terrapin Books), Rivet Journal, and One Sentence Poems. Originally from Kansas, she lives in New York where she reviews poetry for the Saturday Poetry Series at Asitoughttobe.com and literary magazines and chapbooks for NewPages.com.