When Henry Ford Hid the Moon

When Henry Ford Hid the Moon

by

Matt McGuire

His father was a medic,
Royal Canadians
layman Anglo,
in dusty Palestine,
patching Arabs
and pulling Tommies
to safety
during
the Great War.
Turk shrapnel
grazed his collar
so he set up family
in Michigan,
practicing on gout-ridden farmers
and ill fishermen,
sin taxed and
ripe with
dysentery.

His mother was a hennaed
Green Irish
rummy,
six pints of Beefeater
over gin,
the cards trembling
between her manacled
Charles of the Ritz
fists,
chained to laudanum,
priestly teas,
and a checklist
of parties,
yeomanry,
and fools.

He was a large boy,
cherry redhead
fair as milk
with a penchant
for power,
so he played football—
Offensive Line
where the slow,
big and brutal
fended ends.
He'd sneak flasks
in his trousers,
on the hayrides
after games,
sipping Mohawk firewater,
howling at the stars
over Superior
when Henry Ford
hid the moon.

Falstaff Brown
kept him out
of the draft,
so he laid his leather
helmet
aside
and served his
country.
Four years in West Germany
as a Cold War
soldier,
Air Force Intelligence,
breaking codes
and telling lies
over the wires.

He got a crash course
in Russian,
a few Bulgar
phrases
and a taste for
clear liquor.
Stolichnaya and filtered
cigarettes
till dawn
in a bunker,
two clips for a Walther,
stacks of red tape
on Reds,
and a view of the
backside
of Uncle Sam.

Stateside broken
not in body,
but in spirit
he found solace
in the church.
But De Colores and the Knights
of Colombo
couldn't break John Barleycorn's
hold.
He signed up for classes
off base in Austin
where he walked on
and “got clobbered!”
Red shirt in the bin,
graduating cum laude
from Bill's Bar
he scraped by,
passing out
after passing his finals
all in.

He got married,
taught History,
sired a child
and stayed drunk.
Second still born,
wife in tears,
bills in arrears
he brawled, boozed
and whored
weathering the storm
in the rear of
Bill's
slap gone in a
bunk.

His drinking assumed
“epic proportions”
when his wife said
“I won't!”
Divorced deacon,
he turned deaf
to the pleadings of his
priest.
Determined to die
he headed north
to Carolina,
bought a shack
in a lonely hollow
and a .45 semi-auto.
The stack of silver certificates
he'd been shepherding
for his son
went into enough
gin
to see him
through,
to see the end
and have it
done.

As he sat bleary,
in a bentwood chair,
Mozart's Requiem
on the radio,
his death
before him
and gray mist
on the air,
he cried out to heaven
as all drunks
soon do
for an answer to fate,
pleading PLEASE
and
FATHER, WHAT MUST I DO?

Silence.

Quiet.

Whisper of a breeze...

Movement of Handel
began,
as the mist moved
Sam Colt
slipped gently from
his hand.
The moon!
The moon!
Beaming from behind the clouds,
bigger than
he'd remembered,
remembrance
of beauty
tearing the shroud.
He thrust forward to his feet
heaving arms to the sight,
bathing sin, shame, and yesterdays
in the glorious light.

He fell to his knees
in the still evening dew,
tears of joy, grace,
and love—
warm aglow
through and through...

...the moon shined on
as the Sphinx
sits in Giza,
a terrestrial stone,
brilliant,
unaware of her majesty.
An eternal reminder
of the sad fate of
Eve,
mantle of the old gods,
the frailty and madness
of Man
in her
substance,
favor inscrutable,
crown graced
with myriad souls...