a poem for the full moon

These Hips (For the Full Moon)
-Adele Brown

They carry babies to term,
cradling them beneath ilium crest
until full moons rise over tide waters,
stretch long white fingers over the dark
horizon, and pull.

Lunar gravity bears down
and spreads the bones apart.
Pelvic plates press clean
against layers of glycerol flesh.
They stretch skin
wider than the wings of
a Rorschach butterfly,
leaving offspring behind
stained in dark reds and blues
of old blood and afterbirth.

As a river mouth
makes a bed of its own sand and silt,
these hips find softness in their own refuse.