In honor of today's full moon, the ninth Moon Prize* goes to Anne Peterson's powerful poem of abuse and unresolved loss, "No More Talking"—backdating to the full moon of May 10, 2017.

No More Talking

by Anne Peterson

“Divorce” the letter read; 

“violence,” it went on.

A long-distance call made: 

“I can’t talk now! 

He’s harassing me again.”

Hours later a phone rings, 

and two sisters talk.

One tells of a hurting heart 

and ten years of pain;

the other sobs in silence.

“Calling the police was easy,

I wish I would have done it sooner.”

Days later, another caller, 

“She’s gone.

No one knows where. 

She never showed up at work. 

Her husband says she just walked out.”

Disbelief fills a sister's heart,

Too many questions invade her mind:

Why would she leave her kids?

Why didn't she take her car?

Why not wait for the money

that would be hers the next day?

Some questions in life get answered, 

and some take time. 

It has been thirty-five years 

since two sisters talked,

and one still hurts.

* * * * *

Anne Peterson is a poet, speaker, and published author of 14 books. She has written Broken: a story of Abuse and Survival, several children's books and some poetry books. You can see Anne's books here at her author page. To find out more about Anne, visit her website at www.annepeterson.com or you can visit her Facebook author page.

* The Moon Prize ($91) is awarded once a month on the full moon for a story or poem posted in Writing In A Woman's Voice during the moon cycle period preceding a full moon. I don't really want this to be competition. I simply want to share your voices. And then I want to pick one voice during a moon cycle for the prize. I fund this with 10% of my personal modest income. I wish I could pay for each and every poem or story, but I am not that rich. (Yet.) For a little while only there will be two awards each month, on the day of the full moon and the day after, until I catch up with past postings.

Why 91? 91 is a mystical number for me. It is 7 times 13. 13 is my favorite number. (7 isn't half bad either.) There are 13 moons in a year. I call 13 my feminist number, reasoning that anything that was declared unlucky in a patriarchal world has to be mystically excellent. Then there are 4 times 91 days in a year (plus one day, or two days in leap years), so approximately 91 days each season. In some Mayan temples there are or were 91 steps on each of four sides. Anyway, that's where the number 91 comes from, not to mention that it's in the approximate neighborhood of 100.