Waiting for Moonrise

Jacob Friesenhahn

July 6, 2025

On a panhandle evening,

the breeze bites harder

than June ought to allow.

I wrap myself

in a fuzzy green blanket

and sit with the flatland.

The fields stretch open

before the wind.

Birds chirp into dusk.

The highway sighs

with distant sorrow.

The sky holds

a deep blue breath,

waiting with me.

Mosquitoes dangle—

blood-filled thoughts

I wish I didn’t have.

The birds begin to give in,

one voice at a time.

Insects take their place.

They make a softer kind of music,

closer to the ground.

Somewhere behind the cloudline,

she breathes, low and rose,

not yet whole.

The birds and a lone bullfrog

echo each other, then quiet.

Now only the crickets tick—

wet clocks hidden in the grass.

The sky blackens at its edges,

framing a soft purple center.

Even the air knows to whisper.

She still hides from me

behind her mantilla

of cloudlace,

until silently she presses

through, slow and pink,

flesh strangely familiar.

I think of the life

I used to know

as my eyes trace

her silver circumference,

trying to accept

the stillness of motion.

Jacob Friesenhahn is the author of The Prayer of the Mantis (Kelsay Books, 2025). He teaches religious studies and philosophy at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.