Perhaps modern lovers haven’t been twining tongues and pledging passionate permanence in the sweet cliché of its ghost-soft light. Maybe the liars and lunatics of today stay indoors for their inspiration – glued to “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, haunting internet chat rooms, lighting aromatherapy candles and reading enormo-gasm sex tips in hate-yourself beauty magazines. So maybe it began to feel neglected. Obsolete even. All we really know is, the moon ran away.

It must have tumbled from the sky somehow, while trying to break free. It must have rocked loose from its orbit and plummeted silently to earth, when no one was paying attention. And here’s the miracle: it didn’t shatter. It landed whole, with a moist plop. And it stuck, mucky in the mud.

No one noticed it as they trudged past the puddle in the Piggly-Wiggly parking lot, rounding their shoulders against the wind and hustling through the see-my-breath night to buy their nasal sprays and fabric softeners. While their shopping carts wicka-wicka-ed down fluorescent aisles, a cacophony of flatulent Reeboks screeked along speckled linoleum.

The moon shivered, watery blue, in the puddle behind the shopping carriage corral.

No one wondered about the moon. They wondered if their bosses knew they used company computers to email low-fat lasagna recipes and blow-job jokes to their putative friends. They wondered if their almost-serious new boyfriend was boinking that so-called distant cousin that visited last weekend. They wondered how big these pink sweatpants made their ass look, and if they should have put on the black jeans, just in case. They wondered why they weren’t wonderful.

The moon lurked low, shivering in its pathetic puddle, while they hoisted their hatchbacks and heaved in their provisions. They brought the bakery-fresh snickerdoodles into the front seat, though, fortification for the famished drive home.

The ravenous moon moped, maudlin, enmired in muck. No one noticed the moon.

When they started their cars they only noticed that it was getting dark so early now. So before they punched Joni Mitchell into the cassette player and sang along with the heartbreak, before they cranked on the heaters that wouldn’t throw any warmth for another twelve blocks anyway, before they even tore the first tender, yielding cookie from its polystyrene cocoon, they all flicked on their headlights.

####

Mary Corinne Powers is the mother of three brilliant sons, a breath-takingly moronic labrador, an ancient Volvo station wagon, and an intriguing assortment of mostly-dead plants.

In a previous incarnation she was a ‘child and adolescent therapist’ in residential treatment programs and special education schools. She’s now working (or trying to work) as a freelance writer, high school English teacher, academic tutor, copywriter, and volunteer wine-taster-at-large. She’s becoming her own work of art.

Mary can be reached at MaryCP@aol.com