---
title: On seeing the panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site
genre: verse

id: apollo11
toc: "On seeing the panorama of the Apollo 11 landing site"

ekphrastic:
    image: "panorama-apollo11.jpg"
    title: "Big deal."
    link: "http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141220.html"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 5
    next:
    - title: Ars poetica
      link: arspoetica
    prev:
    - title: And
      link: and
...

| So it's the [fucking moon][].  Big deal.  As if
| you haven't seen it before, tacked to the sky
| like a [rotten hunk of meat][], a maudlin love

| letter (the _i_'s dotted with hearts) hung
| on the sky like ninety-eight theses.
| Don't stare at it like it means anything.

| Walk past it quickly, eyes averted.
| Don't give it the chance to collect meaning
| from your [outstretched hand like a pigeon][].

| Ascribing it a will, calling it fickle, or
| thinking it has any say or even an opinion
| of your affairs is a mistake: it's separated

| from you by three hundred eighty thousand miles
| of emptiness, staring at you blankly like a child
| or your reflection when you found your love broken

| in the dark, when time fell apart, broke down,
| started following you around everywhere, [moonfaced][],
| doggedly asking where you're going, like you know.

| Don't try side stepping time, either: it's only
| a river you're stuck in, [carrying you][] under the glare
| of the moon nuzzling closer, cooing in your ear

| like a dove that escapes into the empty sky at dawn.

[fucking moon]: deathstrumpet.html
[rotten hunk of meat]: roughgloves.html
[outstretched hand like a pigeon]: last-passenger.html
[moonfaced]: boy_bus.html
[carrying you]: music-433.html