Neighbors appear in ones and twos
to cluster outside the buildings.
Some have brought folding chairs,
others binoculars, as though expecting
fireworks and not a lunar eclipse.
Those with the best equipment
relay the news to the rest of us.
But everyone can see a shadow begin
to move across that unearthly countenance,
a woman covering her hair
with a black lace mantilla
as she hastens shamefaced
through the side door of a church.
Now the moon is a blood orange
in a bowl of stars. Some burst
into applause and others follow.
Our moon, they murmur proudly,
proprietary as children watching Mother
get tarted up for a night on the town,
awed by her transformation from
domestic drab to celestial queen,
the old familiar become untouchable.
