A terrible beauty is born

The moon hangs red tonight.

"Was that -?"

"Yes." One flash of lightning and then another.

We stand together on the sidewalk and look up at the sky. Sizzling purple. Horizontal slashes. Angry scrawls on a recently passive sky.

But somehow this electric canopy inspires your confession of fears. "I have the feeling that something is going to go wrong," you say in the car. Large droplets hit the windshield. "Here. In the world. Everywhere."

I wave to friends in the next lane, grins pressed against the glass as they sign to us.

"I wonder if I'm missing a warning," I answer.

Under the roof of a well-lit house, she smiles at his concern. "Let's turn the lights off," she replies. She is calm, gently mocking when the lights no longer turn back on and explosions from the sky shatter the night. "If it's the apocalypse, at least we're all together. If it's the rapture, we won't have time to worry, anyway." Comfortable by candlelight, she stretches on the sofa. She understands religion.

I do not recognize the allusion and feel that I should. I hear "together" and think of my mother, who sits quietly on the same corner of the couch, worrying.

A sudden ricochet from the retreating storm. We are not so potent as we believe ourselves to be.

Later, cars slice through puddles and pass on, indifferent. The lights of stores and traffic gleam as always.

The moon hangs red, dripping from a violent birth.