Scanning for the moon and seeing only stars, expecting that thin cupping shape a bit swollen now, and earlier the sky clear enough to see the other side. So later I just looked for the other side and saw only stars among the streetlights.

Now the mornings are cold. This is a lyric poem whose fantasy is communism and space travel.

Which is why I love it when a bright star turns out to be plane or satellite. The moon is soft clay, made of dust, hair, crunched leaves, the underfoot. With the radio off, only the occasional trill of the garden birds lulls me awake, only the dull roar of not distant roadways, only the neighbor’s tread.

I won’t sleep on the call, it is everywhere. I only sleep now and then; my ears, always warm with meetings, my feet, twisted into these orientations.

I only fall luckily, looking up on the part of the street with dimmer street lighting, and that’s my privilege.