In order to view this poem as the author intended it to appear, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone.

Eclipse
Corinne Wohlford Mason

Sometimes I have called things love
that were not love. Sometimes I have made
meaning where there was just weather or chance.

Often, my imagination too keen,
the pale face of the real thing
disappoints. This August day was
predicted long ago.

But totality, when the cicadas sang
and the shadows became
crescent, caught us
unprepared: look at that, said everyone
to everyone else.

The 360-degree sunset—we couldn’t say how
the light had changed, only that it had.

Folks cheered and cried, as if all
our hearts had wanted, ever, were slivers of
moon scattered on concrete and grass, and nothing—

nothing more.

—
Corinne Wohlford Mason teaches US history, culture studies, and writing at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, where she also chairs the Department of Humanities. She holds an MFA in poetry from Washington University and a PhD in American studies from St. Louis University. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Phoebe, Hawaii Pacific Review, Harvard Review, New Ohio Review, Southern Indiana Review, Pleaides, the Grolier Poetry Prize annual, and elsewhere.

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Corinne’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
A Mobile Crucifixion by Jack Brown
Murderous by Paul Sohar

Table of Contents