Blue moon, old kisses stale on your lips, the glittery lost shoes and the broken necklace, the crickets calling for you in the tall dry grass, the gold stalks of wheat leaning backward in the wind, blue moon, the voice saying, “Without a dream of your own,” something final in your heart, something gone, a white fire through the trees.

My father was a leopard. He was gone all night and slinked in just before dawn. I imagined him lying on a long tree branch, his yellow eyes drinking in the moon, his spotted tail barely visible as he waited for his prey to come to him. He would sleep all day, and I would walk quietly up to him, breathe his fierce breath and dreams. “Leave him be,” my mother would say. “He needs his rest.” If I touched his arm or shoulder, he’d wake just long enough to swat me across the room with his powerful paw. “He loves you in his way,” my mother told me, “but don’t test him.” Even sleeping, his majestic face was still frightening, and the whole house wasn’t big enough for his angry growl.