Men In the Moon
by Mary B. Sellers

Angry velvet air and a curved comb of a moon—its mannish features tonight are fine-toothed and ashy, like the fresh outline of an elbow bruise. Ever since I was little people have told me he’s smiling up there—a not-quite-father-figure, presumably kind and probably old—but I can’t help wondering about his penis size or whether moon entities are even allowed those. I’ve never quite believed them, though. To me, he’s only a watchful stranger, vague as a ghost, constant as a headache. Just another man playing god for twelve hour shifts, like he owns the place, like he has some right to it. If the stars were a diner, he’d be their owner. 

I prefer the sun. She, without any motherly pretenses or unnecessary celestial smiles. Like Sylvia’s Lady Lazarus, she scorches, her face bright and holy enough to blind. Hers is a killer thumbprint, a power present even in the skin. She’s in the scatter-star freckles on my nose, peeking through the matte CoverGirl powder I bury them under; in my father’s melanoma, the hunks carved from his cheeks and throat as big as stew meat. 

Mary B. Sellers is a writer, teacher, and devoted dog mom. She received her BA in English from The University of Mississippi and her MFA in fiction from Louisiana State University, where she served as editorial assistant for The Southern Review. Her short stories and essays have been published in a variety of places, a few including: the Sundress Publications blog, Psychopomp Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Literary Orphans, Dream Pop Press, New Delta Review, Sidereal Magazine, and others. In July 2020, Sellers served as a short story entry reader for the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association Literary contest. She currently lives in Jackson, Mississippi.

Image source: Josh Miller/Unsplash

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