A Worm Moon Rising
© 2014, by Don Poss
A Worm Moon was rising and skipping from siros cloud-to-cloud, like a rock skipping
pond water. Moonlight, pale and luminescent, bathed the night in subdued
silver, framed mountains and coattail-hills in soft glowing-silhouette, and
sucked black-clad night crawlers from the earth.
Standing quietly in the night an Air Force sentry easily read his c-rations’ labels,
hoping for a favorite pound cake everyone else seemed to hate. He never
considered that, like the mountains, he was aglow in haloed-silhouette
and anyone so inclined could have blown him away with a lead-yawn.
Quiet.
The sentry's thoughts had replayed his prom night and last-night home.
His eyes were drawn toward the heavens in wonder, and for some reason he
thought about the fact a hundred years ago we had fought our own civil war.
He puzzled again about why we were in Nam. No one had explained
what was so important about Vietnam.
He squatted and broke off a stale piece of crumbly cake and wished he had a
coffee to dunk it in. The smell of churned-earth hung heavily; courtesy of the runway construction
crew squids... at least he was fairly sure they were Navy.
He glimpsed his Seiko watch; only minutes had passed since the last check. An F-4 Phantom launched afterburning nearly straight up as if targeting the moon, seemingly in reach, until phantom-melding with the stars.
