---
title: 'On seeing the panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site'
project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
...

So it's the fucking moon. Big deal. As if \
you haven't seen it before, hanging in the sky \
like a piece of rotten meat nailed to the wall,

a maudlin love letter (the i's dotted with hearts) \
tacked to the sky's door like ninety-eight theses. \
Don't stare at it like it means anything.

Don't give it the chance to collect meaning \
from your hand like an old pigeon. Don't dare ascribe \
it a will, or call it fickle, or think it has any say

in your affairs. It's separated from your life \
by three hundred eighty-four thousand miles of space, \
the same distance you stepped away from time that night

you said your love was broken, a crippled gyroscope \
knocking in the dark. It was then that time fell apart, \
had a nervous breakdown and started following you

everywhere, moonfaced, always asking where you're going. \
You keep trying to get away from it but it nuzzles closer \
and sings you songs that sound like the cooing of a dove \
that will only escape again into an empty sky at dawn.