October 18, 2016

the night after a full moon

Maybe it was the buildup, or the sexy images from NASA, or how the sky
was already brimming with so much light two or three evenings before
the apex. I wondered if, across the world, others were carrying
a similar euphoria of anticipation, as if this lunar narrative would wipe the dust
from our own, offering fresh, nuclear buoyancy to whatever solitary weight our shoulders
were bearing. And it did feel, gazing up, as if the real estate of my life had wandered
into the geography of everyone else's, our necks angled at the same exact pitch.
A day later, the stars looked a little less bright, their sheen bruised by the latest headlines,
the wake of a hurricane, the war between neighbors over lawn signs. The face above us
soured slightly, then began turning away, giving us a month or so to think things over.