Space Suit

I fell asleep in my space suit again. I know this is out of hand, but the moon is getting a bad name, and there are men out there who need me to be an example of how to treat the sky.

The footprints I leave behind are bigger than my feet. In my suit the world is somewhere to be. I don’t need a telescope to see those points of light that shimmer in the wrong places.

The nights sweat me. Even from up here it’s hard to forget that being alone is the moon’s way of reminding us that we are something.

It’s a haul from the front of our building to the apartment. I’m glad I didn’t bounce it alone, clomping in my boots, snuffing out those footprints that led you here where we colonize space as if we needed more places to get lost. 

The Way Faces Look

There are too many things we don’t have names for. Those things that hang from the top of our apartment building like dull hack hacksaws that we think have something to do with birds. The insect sprawled in our bathtub like a shaken sketch on a napkin. The way our faces look when we miss our bus. Or burn the fish. Or realize we better pick something because our chances are winking out like stars.

What’s the word for the world as it decays you? Is it best to hold your mouth closed, to walk down the sidewalk in silence, looking up at cloud formations you’ve forgotten the names of?

All we really need in this life is help carrying the groceries. Fumble for keys to places we’d rather not be. Sleep next to what we fear, and watch the birds in the fresh sun land on those things and realize they have nothing to do with birds at all.