Moonlit

I think this
is the life I wanted 
               all that time, the one that held itself

away from me while I kept choosing
lovely cups and creatures, circus-like 
               and therefore real 

in all their shining. A man at the meeting 
says at least today I’m not doing anything 
               that’s killing me – I think, apart from living – 

yes, this is the life 
I wanted, 
               suddenly livable and

sometimes lived. 
Even when its shape is distant, this life feels closer
               than the walk home from the shift 

trying to not stop at the corner 
to do anything other than turn 
               myself out for the rest of the evening – 

walking to the end of the road 
I make myself turn 
               in the direction 

of the house 
where I go inside 
               where I am not at the end 

of a park’s shadow, looking up at a bruised moon in the sky 
and down at a baggie appeared in my palm thinking
               the two were the same.

Paige Ellen Passantino (she/hers) is an MFA candidate in poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches creative writing. She earned her BA in English Literature from Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar. Her work appears on Poets.org and in The Florida Review, SHŌ Journal, and is forthcoming in Folio, among others. She is a nominee for 2025 Best of the Net, was an honoree for the 2023 Adroit Prize, and her work has been supported by Tin House. She is currently working on her debut collection of poems, a memoir, and a novel about clowns.