One More Moon © by Roy Hahne

“It is a hunter’s moon,” he said as he stared at the fogged and ghostly circle in the sky.

“Nay, ‘tis a lover’s moon,” she cooed just under her breath.

“What?”

She only raised her eyelids to look up at him.

He repeated, “What?”

“I said, it is a lover’s moon.”

He looked down at her as if she were a child. “No, I mean they call this a hunter’s moon.”

“And I say it is a lover’s moon.”

He turned from her and started to walk into the garage. With a guilty cough, he said just under his breath, “Goof.”

She heard him and spoke out into the night, “There is no Goof standing under this moon. There never has been.”

He did not hear her words. He was already squatted down at the side of his Harley.

She walked behind the house to that place where the crab apple bloomed. It’s leaves were beginning to curl, wither on the limbs. She plucked one leaf from the tree and held it to the dark sky until it covered the moon. “It is a lover’s moon,” she murmured to the night.

He was, her lover, steps away, hunkered over a motorcycle and she was alone. The dew wet the hem of her white, cotton skirt where it had brushed the uncut grass. She felt the cool dampness against her ankles. The moon caused the garnet at her throat to glow.

He had told her many times that they were not a couple. He held her at the emotional length of his arm, but wanted her with him always. Could not breathe when she was out of his reach. Without her he felt the airlessness of the world.

She craved his touch at her waist. She craved his lips at her throat. She craved the feel of her hand tucked within his. He withheld all he knew she wanted, like pulling the wings off the fly.

She felt rather than saw the clouds move over the moon, the cold front was moving into the forest retreat. She glanced one last time at the clouded disc in the sky, and made the decision which had eluded her torn but hopeful heart for this long, last year.

Walking back to the door of the garage, she practiced.

Seeing him still with tools at his Harley, she took a deep breath, a breath that would have to last her a lifetime without him. She said, “Yes. I concede. It is a hunter’s moon, obviously a hunter’s moon.” Their eyes caught for a full minute. Both waiting for the words to come from somewhere that would set it all right again. They never came.

As she drove out of his drive way, he looked up to the silvery glow, clouds now all blown on and away. He felt a deep pull on his heart. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it had been a lover’s moon. He had been hunted all of his life, by others and by himself. He could not let it be a lover’s moon. It was too great a risk.

She no longer cared, at least for this little while. She too could not let herself feel this night. It was now too great a risk. The moon was just a pitted ball hung in an endless black sky, but by the time she made it home, she was convinced again that it was a lover’s moon, and was hopeful that there would be another one in thirty days. By the light of the next morning, she thought there might never be a moon again. She trembled.

He, now so far away, awakened to the sun’s light in panic. He was alone again.

Destiny, somewhere on a throne, or riding on a cloud, or hidden in the deepest cave, shook her head in despair as the lover and the hunter cried this day.