Ottavia Paluch: Was It Enough?
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
Sonnet for What Shapes the Moon
after Radiohead
I know true love lives in haunted attics.
It soaks up whatever it needs to burn:
the witches daydreaming against the past,
eyes turning to glass at the sight of now.
The present tense exists only in dreams
that they dream, where the moon is full of love
& all they want to do is leave some hate.
Up there, hell ceases to exist, replaced
by the one which they’re planning to give us.
They were the ones who said it’s made of cheese.
We fell for it—they tripped us with their brooms.
There’s no disco ball here. Just your footprints.
When Armstrong took a step, was it enough?
The bigger they got, the more we’d suffer.
Ottavia Paluch is a disabled high school student from Ontario, Canada. A featured Gigantic Sequins Teen Sequin for 2018, her work is published or forthcoming in The Cerurove, Alexandria Quarterly, Body Without Organs, and SOFT CARTEL, among other places.
