A SOPHIE Elegy: "The Girl Who Fell From the Moon"

SOPHIE, as pictured on the cover of the album Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides (2017), Transgressive Records

Hi everyone — September just flew by huh? The Sun in Virgo is perfect for inner and outer reflection, and I hope my readers are making time for that — no less with the Harvest Moon just behind us.

In light of SOPHIE’s (aka Sophie Xeon) posthumous release’s Sophie (2024) coming out later this month and how much she means to my trans community and many of my friends, I wanted a chance to share a tribute to her — an informal elegy I wrote the day after her death.

It was a hard time for me generally as it was for a lot of us — early 2021, that is. I was bedridden with a herniated disc (since repaired) and dumbstruck by the news. I channeled all I could at the time into this poem, and have since cleaned it up a little:

the girl who fell from the moon

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedtragedy isn't news anymore, anywhere.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedi haven't been to the club in a year,
those nights left on shelves dusty,
with the unread books. an arms pace
away from that furniture fixture i woke up
in the early morning and wasn't waiting for the sunrise.
my back was fixed on a bob and wheel —
an old tired poem, the one about pain and pining.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedBut this mortal host can't numb
the claws and nails of long nights spent
chasing iridescent communion, forget the body
and blood, and the pioneers of alpha waves curling the toesText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedin athens, where hekate lasso'd the moon
and squeezed its breast tissue out from
the sky's sternum. and a girl fell from it — the moon.
she wrote the soundtracks of those
nights on my shelf, plague bound and
tightly remembered. the nights at the club too,
a vantablack velvet dancefloor kneeded
the sensuality out of my knees like sesame kernels.
The recorded rhythms circulated from the
girl and her digital chiaroscuro, flushing primary
colors across the threshing floor space of raving youth.
the sky no fixed facet and spoke in 3/3 measure.
sketching death's opulence is a jury free execution
where justice drops her scales for a margarita.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhen we enjoy things, mortality is implied.
The girl who fell from the moon — crashing on
the bagpipes of elegy with an earthshaking rattle,
writing a storm for the unsung.

If you like to stream her new album, have a look for a physical copy or digital release on all major streaming platforms, September 27th, 2024.

Be well, everyone.