After-Music

Moon

 M o o n out of sight, on the step above the curve in the stairs, the boy sits listening to the fast, smart words. Then the room quiets and they talk about moon madness, sailors caught in the full moon on a calm night, how they might stare at the white flesh pulsing on the waves and step off into the sea. He crawls up the stairs, a little dizzy, half asleep, and there in his room the moonlight slants through the window almost to his bed. What would madness be? He stands in the full moon, breathing, his arms and belly whiter than he has ever seen them. The moon, a yellow  eye with veins, looks only at him. if he looks back . . . He looks. He feels the yellow moving in, seeping through his head and down his spine. a one-eyed dog looks over the roof of the house next door. He can see its snout steaming and the cold dripping from its mouth. The eye says come, and he comes, drawn over the snowy roofs, seeing it all from above. He’s not frightened, it’s some separate part of himself moving away. The snow, with glimmers from the houses, has become a sea, rippling, reflecting yellow. a garage tilts and begins to float. Then a touch on his shoulder. a hand. His father holding him. He’s back in his room, small, the moon still staring, eye that will wait for him. and it does wait.  Years later that same moon, pale now, hangs above the towers in new York City, about to set at dawn. i wave for a cab, give the address of the morgue. Check in at the desk, i guess. Do they wheel the body out or take me into the chilled storeroom? i can’t remember. Can you identify— they pull a sheet back from a face, eyes and mouth open, cheek unshaved. i nod, sign, and leave. Was that my father’s face, twisted, without his glasses? Without his gentle poise. it wasn’t him—or me. The moon reflects faintly in a bedroom window. Then a cab draws up. ...