---
title: On seeing the panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site
genre: verse

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    css: elegies
    order: 5
    next:
    - title: Ars poetica
      link: arspoetica
    prev:
    - title: And
      link: and
...

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.

[fucking moon]: deathstrumpet.html
[rotten meat]: roughgloves.html
[hearts]: proverbs.html