A Flower of a Moon

Tonight I built a fire to honor the Flower Moon. She is waiting for me, standing full and luscious in a cloudless, windless sky. The air is neither cool nor warm but is fragrant of both ice and fire. If I position my chair just right, I can see bits of her through the hackberry and walnut trees – here a bit of wing – there a glimpse of her regal forehead – somewhere off in my imagination the tortuous curve of her breast. Tomorrow, at dawn, if the clouds hold back, I will have a clear view as she stands before me, radiant and naked, in the moment before she slips into the soft black negligee of the earth’s shadow

Later, I will pull back the curtains,, and if the sky remains clear, she will come to me in my sleep, a caress so light there’s a danger of sleeping though it. And if the night grows dark, I will be searching for her, once again, through grey, wet clouds

Still, I will reach for her, to dawn and beyond. I will persist with dreams of cool skin and warm rain, of breathing breath to breath, of touching that which only shows up in pieces and parts, through branches and boughs and patches of clear, radiant light

And I know that she will slip into that dark robe whether or not I am there to gaze upon her; to gaze and to lust; to lust and never to touch; never to touch, always hovering just above the horizon, waiting to be fitted for that dark gown of my own