It’s rumored that emergency rooms and psychiatric wards are more...

It’s rumored that emergency rooms and psychiatric wards are more active at the full moon. It’s rumored that crime spikes. It’s rumored that people get a little crazed and don’t know what to do with their bodies. You’ve heard these rumors. From bartenders and nurses and nursery school teachers. Maybe you’ve felt it your very self. I saw a neighbor on the street and asked how she was doing. “It’s the full moon, you know,” she said, “so I feel completely demented.” It made news that a town in England put more cops on patrol on full moons. Sylvia Plath knew: the moon “drags the sea after it like a dark crime.”

The “Moon in Full” series continues at the Paris Review with the Thunder Moon in July.