by Anna B. Sutton

The doctor draws a pixelated circle
around a photograph of the Moon’s surface

and says, I’m pretty sure it’s a girl.
The photo is not of the Moon’s surface—

though I wouldn’t fault you for thinking
it was. The photo, with its tempestuous swirl

of whites and grays, is of our daughter’s 
hazy labia. We call the Moon a woman

but the face inside it a man. I call the fetus
creature because I think it will hurt less

if someday I leave the hospital empty-handed.
We are always naming things

what they are not. The creature thumps
against my abdomen like a squirrel

barreling along my body’s roof, runs
like a rain-fat creek across my cervix. The collision

of two women—Earth and Theia—once birthed 
the Moon. Every terrible man fed on the body

of a woman, then fled to set fires and leave them 
burning. I would rather this child not be meat

or tinder, but ash-streaked vengeance. I would 
rather her be what we see when we peer 

at the photograph—tornado of heat and shadow, 
suggestion of something that can’t quite be defined.

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Anna B. Sutton (she/her) is a poet and therapist. Her debut collection, Savage Flower, won the 2019 St. Lawrence Book Award and was published by Black Lawrence Press. Individual pieces appear in Indiana Review, Third Coast, Copper Nickel, and other journals. She received her MFA from UNC Wilmington and a James Merrill fellowship from Vermont Studio Center. She was a co-founder of the Porch Writers' Collective and has worked for numerous literary organizations.