A woman is writing herself to death

in an attic with a table, a chair,

and a window the size of a dinner

plate. Over dust-furred floorboards, moonlight spills

like spoiled milk. The poetess believes

she can subsist purely on metaphor.

She doesn’t eat the red apple, but the

apple’s allusion. Her bent neck is sore.

Her fingers clench like a trembling jaw

round her quill. She dips the white goose feather

in a pot of black liquid, warm enough

to drink. The waxing moon’s fingernail scrapes

The moon’s sickle A sickle of moon craves

carves . . . Outside, the real moon cracks like an egg.