top of page

The John Robert Doyle, Jr. Prize

Michael H. Lythgoe

Tango de La Luna: List

Tango de La Luna

No one has written the book of the moon

Last night I was invited to look up

As Carrie asked: Is that the full moon?

It was. A full-figured, pale, womanly moon.


A romantic might have called the alabaster orb

A woman with child. D. H. Lawrence did.

Swollen moon, Hunter's Moon, but not golden.

Yet, the woman confessed her obsession.


We returned to the stage where musicians

Prepared to make love to their guitars, touching

Fingers to strings, frets; acoustic squeaks hung

In the air- before a poem by Neruda ascended,


Sent aloft by human breath through parted lips-

A lyrical tune, tones from a guitar's mouth, singing. Wolf

Moon heard Piazzola' s composition, dancing


To the tango, "Verano Porteno,"

Longing for union: slide, dip, passion-turn.

Portia, a dark lady wearing a mango shawl,

Offered up her poems with jasmine,


Or hibiscus scents, speaking of her bosom

As challenging as arms-full-of-plums

Spilling, her double moons rising in a ritual

Of feminine hands lacing, patting,


Lessening her breasts, wrapping her

Tightly in a kimono with a black obi

Sash tied by Japanese women,

Geishas, admiring her Junoesque silks.

Tango de La Luna: Text
bottom of page