Full moon rising

It’s so hot that there is nothing to do but melt glaciers over my skin and drink the Flathead Lake once or twice. The sun’s packed and gone and the clock hands fuss until there is no one to call and nothing to clean and certainly no dish worth heating the oven for this evening. Nowhere to go but out, out with the dogs and alley smells and monsters, out to stand on the falling-down porch and watch the full moon come up.

The sliver of icy light seeps over the mountain’s edge and then lifts its white shape after. Dry seas are revealed, scars on an old face, and shape comes and comes and comes. Celestial kissing terrestrial, a slow round illusion of touch. It’s a long kiss, the tips of the pines stretching for the last flicks of light. Then it is up and off, on its own course again, solemn and blank. But before it goes back to messing with tides and moods and telescopes, it sends a wind. It slips between the moon and the hill. It steals down the mountain, through the alley and into the angry hot stacks of boxes full of people trying to sleep. And at last, it kills the hottest day in a thousand years, which crawls past crying into my oven to die.

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