The moon is presumed mute—its silence is the silence of death. But when it does speak, it speaks in the language of shadows. You speak this language, too. It was your first language, our shared first language, the language of the dark. When you can’t scream in nightmares, it is the moon caught in your throat, a bright white rolling marble that garbles the voice, makes it choked and animal. Moonlight smells like chalkboard, like snowcloud, like a rock in the dirt. You can skin it with a glimpse, lay its pelt down by the hearth, and wrap yourself in its furred light. No weapons, no blood. A glimpse as it shifts in time; what a thing to witness, the full moon’s monthly resurrection.
The Hunter’s Moon is up, and “The Moon in Full” series continues at the Paris Review.