Moon Wrapped
By Amy Barnes
A moon fell in my lap. It arrived in a desperate slow way -- the way moons often do, death-dropped as it pulled the summer sky slivers away. It slipped through my pudgy fingers and rested on my lap like a splotched 60s jello dessert, wobbly and uncertain, flecked with grandma’s kitchen sink of freezer leftovers. I knew who it was from, Daddy always sent me wondrous gifts. What’s that? Mama asked, as I hid my beloved moon gift under a rainbow-striped shirt. She was too fast and caught a glimpse of the glow and clawed at it, a tiger mother who destroyed moon gifts and summer surprises. I did my best to protect my round moon, round face, pale face twin as she ripped angry surface shreds and tried to harvest the moon from my hands. I heard it cry or moan a little or maybe that was me. With one last swipe, she stole it from me and threw it back to the setting sunflower sky. Curse you, Robert, Mama screamed into the firefly star night. I didn’t want my Daddy cursed but it was too late; he was already gone and my moon gift was out of reach even if I tiptoe-finger-touched the Little Dipper. I heard the screen door slam and her yellow Princess phone rotating click whir click whir to the number she wouldn’t share with me. I closed my eyes to wait for a bedtime wink from another constellation sky, where he lived in a split-level ranch with my crescent moon sisters and new mother I hadn’t met yet but was apparently the sun he rotated around or at least hot according to my suburban mother.
Amy Barnes has words at a variety of sites, including The New Southern Fugitives, FlashBack Fiction, Popshot Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, X-Ray Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic, Museum of Americana, Penny Fiction, Stymie Lit, No Contact Mag, JMMW, The Molotov Cocktail, Lucent Dreaming, Lunate Fiction, Rejection Lit, Perhappened, Cabinet of Heed, Spartan Lit, National Flash Flood Day and others. Her work has been long-listed at Reflex Press (3rd place), Bath Flash Fiction, Retreat West and TSS Publishing. She volunteers at Fractured Lit, CRAFT, Taco Bell Quarterly, Retreat West, NFFD and Narratively. She is nominated for Best Microfictions and a Pushcart. Her flash collection, Mother Figures, is forthcoming in May, 2021 by ELJ Editions, Ltd.