Happy Thursday, Medusa fans! We hope your “snow day” treated you well, and you’re looking forward to another Medusa post! If you missed our last post, feel free to read it here! Continuing on the trend of “throwbacks,” today we bring more great poetry from a past issue of the Laughing Medusa.

As part of the celebration for our new online home this year, we’ve started featuring a selection of some of our favorite pieces from previous print issues of our magazine. Each piece has been selected by a member of our Editorial Council, who’ve been kind enough to tell us why they love it (and why they hope you will, too). If this week’s choice or any others leave you wanting more—and we hope they do—be sure to check out the full version of our latest issue, now available online under that “Our Current Issue” tab you’ll find above.

This week, the featured poem is Blue Moon, by Nicola McCafferty, and was chosen by Maggie McQuade Here is what she has to say about it:

At first the format of this poem threw me off but when I read it a second time, I realized that the fragmented structure emphasizes the biting tone of the poem. It almost makes me feel like I myself am tasting the beer that is objectively gross, reflecting on why I pretended to be someone I’m not. There is a certain resilience to the piece, in that the speaker decides to let go of her deception for someone who probably wasn’t worth it. It feels good to get back at someone, but even better to return to yourself.

Read on for the full poem:

Blue Moon

I tried to cast a spell
on my           tongue
to get it to like the taste of beer.
Someone               I once knew         worked
in a brewery      back in       California

and I wanted    to keep up    with him.
I’m not very good
at witchcraft          so I think
the deception is     wearing off now.

I take a sip of        Blue Moon,
swirl it          over angry taste buds

and spit.