Lunar Eclipse

   by Carol Sanger

She pulls the blanket closer as moonlight 
scatters shapes and shadows in the yard
the same thin protection that covered him 
when a different dark overtook him 
though the house was ablaze and every light on.

Vapor rises from her cup, and she finds
no clean cut to separate what was 
from what will be eclipsed, just ragged smoke 
creeping slower than a revolution, ochre 
in timbre and hue, like a sun setting somewhere. 

Some nights she believes he’s still out there 
drifting among dead branches, palms open 
to catch a falling star – his old habit. 
This night she rotates alone as clouds shift
through their menagerie, covering the moon.