Othera's Moon

When Othera became bored as a frost-bit
stick in the woods, mama would tell her
to go outside and look at the moon.

Othera would squelch her tendency to resist
well-intentioned advice and tear out for
the dirt road that she had long given up as
being any outlet toward where her dreams
could materialize.

Othera disliked the moon, for each time
she got the outline of his white face in
focus, the rest of the old man's body would
swerve to the right and be long gone. She
could never quite catch that white man by his
lonesome with his act together. So looking
at the moon was like looking at clouds that
made their "oops" just to spite the onlooker,
for who wanted a kitten to turn into a tiger?
The Harrison brothers did, for just the thought
of being mean tasted like molasses on biscuits
to the Harrison boys, whose evil deeds had
a stickiness to them because the ugliness the
boys did made everyone's minds glue up with
anger.

The night Othera wondered what was on
the other side of the moon changed her
life, for she pictured a black child directing
an all-black choir there. The birds' chirping
into the night's air became the songs the
choir sang. Othera vowed right then and
there before God and the ants crawling up
her legs that her life would be lived on
the other side of the moon.

copyright 2002 Clair T. Feild