T.A. Noonan

IRIS ORCHESTRATES HER BODY

I say moonbeam basal membrane.
I say spectral fire.

No one thinks twice because

of a few wavelengths:

sodium, overlapping scales,
metal foil——something.

My bands narrow.

I produce clouds
black as the long moon glossing its way to New York.
Two arms

outstretched, deviating angles

——the space between,
Alexander’s Band,

named for the Peeping-Tom Greek
who first observed it.

Yes, the dark of my back——
where energy is lost,
where supernumerary arcs form.

I am the Madagascar moth,

the bridge between messenger
and summation,

illusion of the curve I crave.

T.A. Noonan's Petticoat Government will be published by Gold Wake Press in early 2011. She is also the author of the chapbooks Balm and Darjeeling, as well as the founder/editor-in-chief of Flaming Giblet Press. Individual publications have appeared in Ninth Letter, RHINO, Phoebe, Harpur Palate, and many others. Currently, she lives in Florida with her husband.