They crowd us from the train and into the chill of the night air. It is again November. There is no
light but the light of the moon. She is full and shines through the tangled limbs of barren trees.
Move, the officer of the peace grunts, and disoriented you stumble to your knees. Move, he says
again, the sound sharper and shriller this time, and you try to get out of his way, but you fall to
all fours. Your own shadow prevents you from seeing your hands in front of you, inches from the
edge of the platform. The moon has betrayed you by offering your back to his eyes. He kicks you
hard in the ribs. You wince as pain crackles electric through you. You hear the bone as it snaps,
shards of rib pierce the surrounding tissue. You curse the bitch of the moon. You are weak, weak,
weak, so weak, you’re not even that old, and yet you are so weak, he whispers into your ear, his
body heat sudden upon you. You are caught, he has you in the posture of an eager, submissive
lover. You fight a wave of nausea. You feel his erection as it strains the coarse fabric of his
uniform. You eat the image you cannot see. You remember the First War, how the officers were
still human then. The boys they sent out into the desert returned, changed. The White Dog
disfigured their souls out there, in the expanses of white sand beneath whiter sky. You remember
hearing that they went mad as they could no longer distinguish the horizon line and to their eyes
all was as blankness and it was then that the White Dog appeared and became their master. You
remember hearing the White Dog made them partake of the flesh of their fellows. You remember
hearing they died and were not dead. The puncture in your side pulses with the explosive
brightness of a dying star. You leak light you cannot see. In ending, everything shimmers. How
can you be this weak, he says, his lips wet against your ear, his breath hot and sour. He wraps his
right hand around your neck, his hand is so large that it encircles your throat completely, easily.
He is such a large man. I could just squeeze and throw you, limp, onto the tracks, his voice
resounds as though from deep within your body. The air in your throat is vibrant with
constriction. Indeed, the autonomic functions of the body have a terrifying insistence. And just as
sudden as he was upon you, his hand is gone and you can no longer sense his presence, his
weight and his heat have vanished. You still can’t see your hands in front of you. Minutes pass
though they might be ages. You finally think to lower onto your forearms and roll onto your
back, safely away from the edge of the platform. You look up into the face of the moon now
above the trees. She bathes you gentle in her light. You remember the piano key in your left
hand. The last remaining piece of the only thing your mother ever loved.

Bio: Elizabeth Moylan is an artist, writer, and educator based in Brooklyn. She holds a BA in Gender Studies from the University of Chicago, where she also studied Russian Language and Literature, and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was an instructor of painting, print media, and fiber and material studies. She has also taught through the Brooklyn Public Library and been a guest lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been a featured reader at Verses in Vinyl at All Blues and will be a featured reader at the Out of the Box reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club on March 11th.