LUISA MURADYAN
Luisa Muradyan is originally from Odesa, Ukraine and is the author of I Make Jokes When I'm Devastated (Bridwell Press, 2025) When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), and American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). She is the winner of the 2017 Raz/ Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize and a member of the Cheburashka Collective. Additional work can be found at Best American Poetry, the Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and the Georgia Review among others.
scientists predict that the moon was made
when a rock smashed into the Earth
and the more I look at my
son’s birth photos the more I see my body
ripped open by my sun, no wait by my
moon who invites me into the space
of his playroom and smiles
with the fullness of his face
And I guess what I’m trying to say
is yes, I have been eclipsed by love.
Because I need poetry to open the door to its house while I’m standing outside in the rain holding a boombox. Because language fails me so often but like the annoying couple in every rom-com we will fight but we will end up together.
December 2, 2024