The moon is highlighted immediately in the title, and carries multiple meanings in this work as well as in broader western culture. It’s not mentioned directly in the poem until the fifth stanza, in which girls are “enslaved to the fearful rhythm / of the moon” (Lines 24-25). Later, the women at the centre of the poem “keen to the moon” (Line 43), a moment in which the moon becomes a protective and maternal figure. Throughout the poem it symbolizes the dichotomy between feminine power and the captivity of natural rhythms.