Poetry Fiction Issue Atlantic Monthly

by Brooks Haxton

Datura

Article Tools

E-mail Article
Printer Format

When the full moon rises
and the sphinx moth, hidden
all day, hovers into the twilight
between smoky blurs of wings,
in midair she spools loose
her tongue, and dips her body
into the grail cup of the fumes
for which to be the sphinx
at nightfall is to yearn.

Brooks Haxton’s most recent collection is Uproar: Antiphonies to Psalms. He teaches at Syracuse University and at Warren Wilson College.

Article Tools
E-mail Article
Printer Format

What do you think? Discuss this article in Post & Riposte.

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter.

Also By

Brooks Haxton

May 2008

Cuneiform

July/August 2004

Gift


Name

Address 1

Address 2

City

State Zip

Email

Atlantic Voices

Andrew Sullivan

Voting For A "Half-Breed" Read more

13 May 2008 11:04 P.M.

Matthew Yglesias

Clinton Wins WV Read more

13 May 2008 7:48 P.M.

Ross Douthat

Harry The Overrated Read more

13 May 2008 7:39 P.M.

Megan McArdle

Peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa Read more

13 May 2008 7:31 P.M.

Marc Ambinder

DNC Memo: McCain's Failing Read more

14 May 2008 12:00 A.M.

James Fallows

Three more views (last, for now) on DayJet and air taxis Read more

13 May 2008 5:56 P.M.

Jeffrey Goldberg

The Honorable Mr. Boehner (II) Read more

13 May 2008 4:45 P.M.

Clive Crook

Pause Read more

02 May 2008 7:21 P.M.