That, Winter Lunar Eclipse

14 degrees below zero in our backyard The black midnight air is paralyzed like glass Laid flat on a metal slab Still for its hammer autopsy. My son and I stand side by side Shivering from the cold blows Amidst the barren Oaks Staring up from here, a rocky surface, To there, the soft eternity filled with universe A full moon above us And rather than its usual white disc Hung flat Against a wall like a keepsake dinner plate This moon is rimless and spongy Orange as a squeezed fruit Fully eclipsed from Earth’s shadow No longer in the sky But clinging from a vine Hovering just below The tree tops of our world Where the night has lost its divide While deer float by Starved for gravity. “I’ve never seen the moon like that before.” I say to my son And he replies “Me neither, dad.” My 18 year old boy His face less its oval yawn More a sharpened angle like a raven clean shaven His hair a dream of curls like Apollo His hazel eyes even to me Or should I say meeting me With justified suspicion A self-portrait vandalized by this art Shape shifting time From fear to wisdom and back Like a sword striking a shield Until the defender is reduced to his knee Beaten down Peeking up Behind this growing shadow Cast From boy to man.