Poet of the Month
Every month Moon Tide Press features a different poet to celebrate and bring readership to deserving, diverse voices.
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If you are interested in being featured as a Poet of the Month, or want to nominate a poet, please contact editor@moontidepress.com.
Melanie Perish
January 2026
Melanie Perish is a gender fluid crone interested in the complexity of poetry and poets. Her work appeared in Calyx, Abandoned Mine, Rust & Moth, The Meadow, Sequestrum, Persimmon Tree, and other publications. A feminist, she continues to believe the personal is the political. Nevada Humanities featured her poetry during the pandemic and again in their Double Down Blog (2024) in addition to Nevadan to Nevadan (2023) – a venue initiated by then Poet Laureate, Gailmarie Pahmeir. Passions & Gratitudes (Black Rock Press, 2012,) The Fishing Poems (Meridian Press, 2016,) and Foreign Voices, Native Tongues (Blurb, 2021) are her collections. Melanie is indebted to other poets who read and comment on her poems. Workshopping poems have helped her become a more careful reader and a better poet. She believes that reading makes
you beautiful.
WE ARE NOT ALWAYS
We are not always the wise woman;
the staunch healer, the constant midwife,
the one who culls the herbs
into the magic poultice.
We are not always mother and daughter,
the strong hands, the nipple’s sweetness,
the arms that rock and rock
and give when need demands it.
We are not always earth and water,
nor two sheaves of wheat,
nor shells wet with repetitious waves,
the salt rim fresh on the thin smooth lip.
Sometimes we are the spinsters
who turn the wheel, but do not spin,
the mother’s nag, the daughter’s wanton anger.
Sometimes you are the river,
the river that threatens my field;
I am the wave that hurls its crest
like rocks
against your clapboard beach house.
Like atoms
we move,
owning weight, mass, momentum.
We are not always anything but ourselves.
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First appeared in Sinister Wisdom, Spring, 1981
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ON A STREET THAT SHOULD BE NAMED LOSS
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He called and we walked
stopped in front of a brick house on Ralston
I think his lover used to live there
down the street from St. Mary’s ER.
He asked if I remembered last month
when we were in Vermont,
but we were never in Vermont.
Nerves on Defcon 1 because
he was off his meds and on
mushrooms or Humbolt County
red-haired sensimia.
In Vermont, he said we tapped
maple trees, drilled a trunk hole,
pushed the spile in, heard sap run.
We were magic, he said. The trees
were mystics, in English and French.
I’m afraid they’ll tap
my brain again, he said.
I won’t let them, I said, and neither
will your brother. Let’s stop there.
I left him at his brother’s house
I left him in better care than mine,
I kissed his cheek before I left.
His pain was wiser
than my kiss.
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First appeared in Abandoned Mine, Fall, 2023