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I caught hold of a marvelous moon in my entry level lasso. I wasn’t wearing boots or a hat and hadn’t had much handling. All through April, I dreamed of the creeks rising, birds laying stone eggs, my teeth chattering to the tune of old hymns. By the time May came around, I was a nervous wreck and didn’t dare think of sleep for the trinkets it told me to hold inside my head. But this was a night much later on, in a field far from my home. These were gloves I’d been wearing for years to pack snowballs or dig rows to plant sweet potatoes. Or paint walls or catch foul balls. And they had holes large enough to see patches of skin I’d been saving for an occasion like this. Inviting and amorous hands I had crafted myself out of paper and porcelain some boring June afternoon. Before I wrote the stories or wondered what giraffes ate. Before I knew phone numbers I wanted to memorize or had listened to someone’s heartbeat through their bare chest. So there it was, that mystic moon, glinting like every eye i’d ever seen just before closing. My breath caught on my teeth and the night air whispered demon quick and sweet like jasmine. “Grab it, now!” and my wrists flicked knowingly, uncoiling soft loops of rope in swift lilting lines through ink…
