Moon, all these years

we’ve circled each other:

me, for the most part, indifferently

-­‐ obiter dicta, the back of my neck

-­‐ you, elliptically; that sidestep dark face,

the pale face you keep for daylight,

the sometimes red flush we all live under,

the way you’ll cling to sky

with barely a fingernail.
You hosted us in the classroom

TV honoured guest,

the astronauts strange as starfish

then bouncing around the screen

like little children on a trampoline,

the power glow of pedagogic light

reflected off our shiny foreheads

and back to that visible horizon,

showers of brilliant black and lunar

white. Not bone, far from it,

yet the rocks in your head

have so many names, Moon,

each of your proliferating phases

labelled, no doubt, with exemplary

diagnoses written up, and down,

in some swollen Book of Manuals.
Moon, you are the big pill

day swallows to face the sun.

Though guess what?

I’m no closer to a cure.
Now, this morning’s bag of fog

spills loose across the treetops,

more chill up there than underneath,

and I’m wondering how you’ll fit;

but you do, as ever,

zeppelin descending, drone cold, obese,

easing gently into that bath of dry ice.
This could be a good time, Moon,

to roll up, show the world a clown face.