Moonlight’s a Liar

When Lonnie Winters opened his eyes this time, the light coming in the open window over his head was no different than it had been the last time. He lay still on his back for another couple of seconds allowing his forearm to relax into Toni’s firm warm thigh. She didn’t stir. Leaving your lover’s bed is always an unhappy trip and he aimed to put it off for as long as he could. 

The barred owl they had heard earlier called from the treeline, the “who-cooks-for-you “ call an interesting variation on the little screechers that nested in the oak that shaded the deck. The Whippoorwill must have fled downstream or up into the mountain because beside the owls, it was crickets,  cicadas and the basso profundo of the bullfrogs down in the mud that were the soundtrack.

The heavy night air was as wet as it had during the afternoon, but it’s thickness was tempered by the absence of the punishing sun that had kept them to the shade of the overhanging maples and sycamores as they passed the day among the willow grass on the gravel bars. 

The moon, a blanketed faraway silver dime, cast a  gauzy flat light through the thick air. The rolling fog made it tough to gauge the moon’s position in the night sky. It could as well have been midnight, as two or four o’clock. With the 6 a.m. sunrises gone for the season, nighttime started early and stretched deep into what would have been morning a couple of months earlier.

When they had gone to bed earlier than was typical, she lay flat on her back and spread her legs so that Lonnie could kneel between them. He gently ran his tongue back to front along her slit ensuring she was as wet as his dry mouth would allow. He could smell the river water in her wiry bush as he lifted her into his mouth and worked his tongue in, out and around. Before long he wasn’t the only one providing lubrication. When her breaths quickened, he slid his hands out from under her butt and sat back on his haunches, satisfyingly solid and ready. She pulled her knees into her chest and grabbed the backs of her thighs to spread herself open, toes pointed toward the ceiling  Even in the uncertain moonlight his pathway could not be better defined had she conjured landing lights.

He moved closer and with one hand supporting himself used the other to guide himself to her eager pussy. With a single long thrust he sheathed his cock completely before pulling back to push forward again, and again, harder each time. Then while burning deep within her he leaned forward allowing his weight to rest on her chest as he dug his arms under her shoulders to squeeze her breasts flat against him as he thrust his hips  as quickly as he could trying to match her pace-wondering if she sensed the weakness he was starting to feel in his left hip. Her shudding and tight barking cries over the next few minutes told that she did not.  

Now, a few hours later, He slid stiffly out from under the sheet and trusted his left leg to hold him up, which it did with the aid of his left hand against the wall. Toni was undisturbed, snoring lightly on her back.He regarded her closely in the gray light filtering through the window. Her lean face and strong jawline created shadows on her neck and long long dark hair slashed across her cheek like bloody scars. 

The sheet had slipped to her belly revealing her small flat breasts, nipples like blackberries in the dull moonlight. He would have liked to watch her longer but the new blood thinners they had him on played hell with his guts.  He stood for a moment  to ensure that this run wasn’t going to be a false alarm. Yeah, no…gotta go. He gently pulled the sheet back over her and headed out of the room. 

Lonnie shuffled quietly out the open door and onto the screen porch. There was enough milky moonlight to navigate around table and chairs and make lights unnecessary. He doubted he would have turned them on anyway, thinking  lights crashing into the mountain darkness somehow obscene.

Eschewing the cane he had left by the door for this very trip, he limped down the four steps to the hardpacked dirt and out the flagstone walkway to the outhouse. On his left ran the river, inky black reflecting the gray trees as silver and moon shadows crossed his path. The outhouse door creaked and he took the step up into the small room. There was a little window toward the river that he could look through while doing what he came out here to do. This had been his first trip out here tonight, which wasn’t bad. 

A couple of minutes and he was stepping back out into the relative freshness of the humid night,  sunrise still hours away. His eyes wandered left toward the road and mountain beyond. He froze in mid-step, right foot just grazing the flagstone, heart hammering against his ribcage. There was a man out there-a black silhouette-dimly motionless in the fog,- standing in the road just beyond the triple strand of barbed wire that kept the grazing cattle out of his yard. Lonnie noted that the body cast a shadow as if to convince himself that what he was seeing was not an apparition. “Moonlight is a liar”, the words of his biddy aunt echoed in his head.

Lonnie exhaled deeply and completely, settling his right foot down then shifting his weight to test it. . Of course it would be him. If anything he should’ve been surprised to have not seen him yet. Still, it was damned unnerving “Evening” he said with a wave, opting to not lead with “Good Morning” which would have muted the point he wanted to make. “It’s too early”, he called out,  hinting that yes, morning was the next thing, but still next. Not now. “Come back sun up. We’ll have coffee”. 

The dark figure raised a hand as Lonnie did the same. He answered with his own small wave then kept walking as the figure turned and started back his own winding path up into the mountain.  “Jesus”, he breathed, watching until the shadow melted into the deep woods at the base of the mountain. 

The startle of the vision in the road had pushed enough adrenaline through Lonnie’s  blood that he was now awake for certain.Sour sweat having nothing to do with  humidity dribbled between his shoulder blades. Going back to bed now would only awaken Toni. He took the four steps up to the screen porch and reached in for the cane before crossing to the deck overlooking the river and the dock right below. He leaned against the railing. He had never regretted giving up cigarettes until now.

The dark water was flat, the only sounds feeding bass splashing in the weed beds along the other side. He saw a bar of soap-a glowing white wafer at the end of the dock. A dip would certainly be in order. In his younger days he would have skipped down the hill and dove in. Now it was all about preparation and consideration. He had never been a cautious man and it didn’t come easily.  

He heard the door to the porch creak open. “Lonnie?” came Toni’s urgent whisper. He turned, disappointed that she had slipped a dark T-shirt over her head, though her white panties winking at him at the hemline was definitely intriguing. 

“Were you talking to someone?” she asked staying on the top step. 

“Naw…an old song, is all.”

“What time is it?” she asked. 

“Too damn late or too damn early.”

“Come back to bed.”

“I will. I think I might take a dip first.”

“I don’t think so.”

Come on, You can stay on the dock.

She started slowly down the steps, as if she were the disabled one. 

“I’ll teach you that old song”, he said. 

She leaned against the railing beside him and he rubbed her back, then sliding downward cupped her bottom. He knew then that once a night was his positive limit and to be grateful for it. 

“Come on”, he said, “You can sit on the dock and make sure I don’t drift away.”

“You’re going regardless, right?.”

He didn’t answer.

Lazy Bugs

The stars are reflected in the grass tonight,
as fireflies refuse to fly anymore. 
They lay about in the thick brush,
a flickering blanket answering the twinkle
from on high.

Do they act like this on long summer evenings?
How could they?
Kids would scoop them up by the million!
Jar them, squish them,
write their initials with glowing 
firefly goop on their arms. 
Boy kids chasing girl kids squealing
with glossy boogers of firefly goop.
No, they wouldn't lay about like this
in the summer. 

But now they seem tired, these flies.
These non-flies. These fire layabouts. 
It's September after all.
Dark at eight thirty,
kids busy with their homework,
staring at their screens.
It's safe to lay in the weeds,
done with the darting and flying
exerting minimum effort.

If a firefly's flicker is meant
To draw a mate,
these lazy bums should 
go home alone. 


© TDR - 2020

Late July

The heat even stifles the birds-

In no hurry to begin their morning chatter.

There are more nests than usual this year

But fewer eggs.

Fewer hopping fledglings. 

Maybe it’s the full moon gliding across the sky

Wearing Jupiter like a hat and filling the valley with

A gauzy glow.

I’ll have no problem seeing the deer if she trespasses 

Into the garden again. 

The rocks-chosen carefully for size and weight

Line the table beside the steaming coffee cup.

Best to drink it now, it will be too hot once the sun rises.

There was a time when a plundering doe would have left

Here on her last gallop spurting crimson where the arrow had pierced her.

Hard to remember such things with St. Francis smiling

Benignly in the moonshine under the grapes. 

But still, a solid rock to the ribs will serve as notice to 

Go and eat someone else’s tomatoes. 

They are tireless, though in their labors,

Building frantically as if a new nest, near the old one,

Will make their eggs viable. 

They couple and squawk and dive and scree, not understanding

Why none of it works anymore. 

Up on the back street Rudy’s truck slips quietly into

It’s spot under the mulberry. 

He must be back at work.

Not Her

She froze near the bottom of the stairs

Startled by the form

In the window beside the front door.

Some other worldly wraith-white and shaved-stared,

Watching.

Nothing to break the pale but the dark nipples against her milky skin.

The tiny breasts lifted and fell with her breathing.

Below a dark mane, button eyes sewn onto a doll’s face

Searched for something that wasn’t there.

Her lean legs wavy, her flat stomach nothing but a creamy smudge,

Her face, nondescript from here.

She looked away from the reflection.

It wasn’t her at all.

Now The Owl

The sun has only just

Sunken below the ridge

When the little screech owl

(poorly named as it doesn’t screech at all)

Begins its falsetto trill

Announcing that the sun is gone;

The night games can begin.

He’s upstream-due west

Perhaps in the big sycamore.

No bigger than my fist, invisible in the gloaming

That’s fine-I don’t need to see him to

Know what he’s saying.

The evening rooster trilling the eagle home

From the hunt.

Calling the tree frogs out to sing.

The snakes have gone to ground.

Raccoons and possums shake off the days’ slumber.

Finches and towhees give way to swallows dipping and diving

After mayflies and skeeters.

Then the bats join the dance-flickering blindly in

Four directions at once.

Bull frogs thump, thump in the weeds while

Big bass-hearing and hunting-patrol the shallows under dusk’s cover.

Coyotes yip and bobcats cough and deer are free to

Roam the fields.

Venus has just risen in the pearl gray sky when

An otter snags a catfish and curls on a rock to feast.

The trilling says it’s our time now.

Stars awaken and the

Sun sleeps.

We’ll fill your dreams, it says, with the music of the ages.

© TDR 2019