The Milton Review

What Moonlight Can Be

Alex Carrigan

After Korbin Jones’s “Light in the Stairwell” I know what moonlight can be, how to capture it in a jar. My man taught me how one night when we sat on his rotting porch. On his porch, he taught me that all you need is a jar, some plastic wrap, and four empty hands to complete the ritual. A ritual, just like how our priest swings the thurible as he moves down the aisles. My man moved the open mason jar through the night air. The night air was drawn into the jar, while my hands made the plastic wrap nice and taut before I laid it over the jar. The jar looked empty save for a wayward mosquito, but my man told told me I could see the rays of moonlight if I held it up to the sky. I held it up, the moon illuminating white threads that the mosquito continued to sail through, trying to escape through the top. It escaped when I decided to give it an air hole, letting it leak with the light. I’ll always remember what moonlight can be and how to capture it in a jar.

Alex Carrigan (he/him) is a Pushcart-nominated editor, poet, and critic from Alexandria, VA. He is the author of Now Let’s Get Brunch: A Collection of RuPaul’s Drag Race Twitter Poetry (Querencia Press, 2023) and May All Our Pain Be Champagne: A Collection of Real Housewives Twitter Poetry (Alien Buddha Press, 2022). He has appeared in The Broadkill Review, Sage Cigarettes, Barrelhouse, Fifth Wheel Press, Cutbow Quarterly, and more. Visit carriganak.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter @carriganak for more info.

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