"Moon" by Zach Goldberg

as silent and holy as an empty church.

a polished row of pews. you, moon

in the sky, how do you do it?

your one-handed gravity

holding still the earth. astral magic trick,

you newly christened old god.

every family’s forgotten dance is a scar

on your surface. memory like a bear trap.

worldfodder magnet. wise old sledgehammer

once smashed through our orbit longways. we were just a pie cooling on the galactic

windowsill. now we say Light &

mean your face, stretched our whole lives

and once reached your shadow. pockmarked

queen of all ships. all flags. can’t sing

a note of worship if it doesn’t include

a word of pain. the night sky’s

opening bell and serene last call,

nursing your craters like old wounds

nursing your craters like children.

your face held high and regal

through eons of the same steady bruise

and somehow you arrive to us with a bouquet

of escape of routes. i have so much

to learn from you, and not just about physics.

how long did it take you to learn

such luminescent confidence? your brilliant

backlit halo, the way you just float and move

everything, shine your own ligaments to dust.

when people say they love each other

to the You and back, is it about distance

or about damage? about some man’s

lonely footprint? and what do we know

about damage next to you, anyway?

all our blood clots thick with time

but you have no winds to whisper

your name. sometimes the healing

does not rush through you. prehistoric ocean

or otherwise. there are no channels

you didn’t cut yourself. no way to say Over

in the dead space. no one there to hear it

but a silent star.

and a billion other stars.

————————————–

Zachary Goldberg called us from Oakland, CA.

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