“The Moon Walks Out on the Sun: Is-Chel to Kinch Ahau”

By Ariadne Makridakis Arroyo

The Moon Walks Out on the Sun: Ix-chel to Kinich Ahau

You thought I wouldn’t leave you, couldn’t leave you,

but I set into the night,

cloaked in shadow jaguar form as you slept.

I was so fed up. I figured if I was invisible

to you, I might as well disappear for good.

Back then, you were my sun-god—I thought

it was an “opposites attract” sort of thing,

so I weaved for you a spider web catching the morning

dew. But your brilliant craze

never understood my gloomy haze.

Despite your promises to end your jealous fits,

you never delivered.

I should have known—you never change,

always an atomic bull’s eye stuck to the sky.

Your bruises couldn’t paint me any darker

than the eye of the night.

What is black? What is blue

to the hue of the moon’s muse? I sing haunting

nightmare on your pillow. I hiss lingering

embrace.

What’s that you hear, my beloved?

Oh, nothing? Not a peep from me?

Without you,

I’m flourishing in a way that day

can’t even penetrate.  

I face them with the bellies of stars

and all the gaps in between—They ask “What’s up there?”  

You merely scatter rays of blind light,

so trapped in your own gaze.

Every nocturnal noise belongs to me—they clutch my name

to their chests during their bedtime prayers, not yours.

Ariadne Makridakis Arroyo is a poet of Greek and Guatemalan descent who resides in Los Angeles. She recently completed her Bachelor’s degree in Critical Theory & Social Justice at Occidental College. Her work has been featured in Twisted Moon Magazine, Evocations Review, and Feast Magazine, Stellium Literary Magazine, and she is a recipient of the 2019 Argonaut Summer Research/Creative Writing Fellowship.