I don’t know if I’ve ever told you
The truth about the moon and me.
I know we appear somewhat estranged
These days and, perhaps, growing distant,
But ours is an eccentric orbit,
A precession of perturbations.
So what you see of us is nothing
Like we really are. Nothing at all.
Do you think the long bright nights we spend
Staring into each other’s faces
Could be enough? That would be no more
Than a chaste simulacrum of love.
Try to imagine the other nights
The moon and I spend each month slowly
Rolling in a hemisphere of sky
You will never see, where the stars crushed
Beneath us smell of sweet red clover
And our sweat is the dew in July.
