Megan Pinto

Marias on the Moon

Once, an astronomer mistook
the moon’s great craters for seas.
He named each one Maria.

He imagined the Marias on the moon
growing cold, wanting to touch, or
trying to sing.

I understand the ache.
In second grade, the boy I loved
was being chased
by an older girl at school.
I told him I knew where to hide.
Under the jungle gym, we crawled
on our bellies, the metal
raking our backs, but

     there was his arm
     pressed against mine.

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Adolescence

Arm in arm, we circled the soccer field after lunch. The field was like a shallow bowl, the earth around curving up and away. Glaciers, we speculated. And, soon after, what would sex feel like? We had run through the field all morning, our mud-stained gym shorts, now a dull emerald green. My lips were so sticky with gloss, each time the wind blew my hair would get caught. I remember the feeling of circling, one foot treading flat ground, the other keeping balance on the slope, pushing harder so I did not fall down. We were so close. Trading CDs, books, scraps of waste paper with intimate notes: did he call you? Is your mom being quiet again? And then, I found you again in the bathroom, bruised in the face and the arm. Your dad had beat you, hard. I cradled your head in my lap, brushed the hair from your eyes. I told all the teachers we had. Weeks later, nothing changed.

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Cosmology

It’s late. We’re sitting on a boat
docked on the island.
Our waiter brings us water
and more wine. My date
refills my glass, asks
if I would like to take a trip
to space. I think of last summer: nights
by the river, watching a full moon
orchestrate a swelling of tide.
The dock’s spindly legs all but disappearing
into that primordial darkness.
He lights a joint.
I think of the caves
of Lascaux, where celestial bulls
are rendered as if in motion,
the swift lines of their legs
thinning into ether.
No need to explain it.
He blows smoke
into my mouth.

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Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith (Four Way Books 2024). Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Guernica, Ploughshares, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She has received scholarships and fellowships from Bread Loaf, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Poets & Writers and The Peace Studio. Megan lives in Brooklyn, and holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson.

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