Blood moon night of losing the fight with the oven night of violent violet blisters second degree burn peeling off the skin bouquet one less layer, that much closer to bone
The curtain of clouds could not be pulled back yelling at the moon to come out shouting at the clouds to go away makes no difference disappointment, lacking red
When autumn wanes into summer Strawberry moon during solstice in June appears
A cousin of blood, but lighter, a delicate elegance like rosewater glowing like golden honey
From one sky to another Blood & Strawberry a life ripe for picking
Each blister waned into a burn scar, a flattened crescent
Realize the fight is lost when something greater than the self is found bleeding through the edges of our universe
Moon in the Boneyard
A kiss on a foggy night is living on the borrowed words of another poet. The clock strikes lightning. The three girls framed in three large windows are moving portraits. Each one dances into the eaves of midnight, nights of eternity. Their bodies transform movement into muscle memory.
Below, a cobblestone street leads to the cemetery. Each odd-shaped tombstone cries out immortality. Our bones are nearly showing. To live with this illness is to live in a coffin. Our lives spent as students, doing what those laid under the earth did. We are rehearsing the same movements into muscle memory.
Does the egg-yolk moon smile down on us? A fat yellow gumdrop, with hues darker than the sun. Yellow moon rising, turning inside out to sour the world—you and I, all its Bone Children.
Moon, holy host, white ghost, Eucharist held in the sky. Let us exorcise it with our savage howls-- after all, we are only semi-civilized creatures. Our shrieks say, knife off the moon! Turn the wax to wane. For you and I are just a kiss on a foggy night before becoming another stone slab, a Bone Child.
Bio: Tonya Eberhard recently graduated from the University of Missouri. She currently lives in Minnesota. Her work has appeared inFauna Quarterly, The Commonline Journal, The Gambler Mag, Creative Talents Unleashed, Algebra of Owls, Dirty Chai, among others.