Poetry Thursday

The Night of the Full Moon

On highway 5 the moon
is low and bright in the sky, a natural headlight.
It is not the orange globe of my childhood,
when the dish ran away with the spoon,
nor the oyster of last month,
pearlizing my walk through the lily garden.

It is the moon the general talked
about on the radio station Sunday morning,
when he said "the night of the food moon,
is perfect to begin a war."

Now, I imagine the man in the moon
strobing the cannon of light,
across a field of soldiers and dust riddled road,
down the mountain and into the valley,
past abandoned clothes hanging on the line,
to the darkened houses, a blazing guide.

-Alison Marsh Harding