Bury the Moon

I could not bury the moon.

When I first saw the moon’s pale shoulder on the low hills, I flung dirt with a shovel.  But the dirt sloughed off.

I snapped pine boughs from nearby trees and heaved them over the hills, flopped them overtop the moon as if it were a corpse.

But the moon pushed higher.

When above me, the moon whispers accusations in my ear.  The moon reminds me that failure is always my first option.

I need sleep.  Not this dull light pressing against me.  Not the whispering of thousand wrong things in my ear.

I could not bury to moon.

Tonight, the moon buries me alive.

—Mitchell Hegman