Questions Regarding the Moon

QUESTIONS REGARDING THE MOON

If the moon is the inside of a giant Oreo. If you lick it first, save the black, crumbly sky for later.

If the moon is on Instagram, & you follow it, gazing at the soft glow of its surface, its pearled selfies, its untouchable life.

If you slice up the moon like a big silver pie. If you offered yourself the first slice.

If the moon is medicine, a white pill with healing inside.

If you turn the moon inside out.

If the moon is a ball of gauze waiting to be unrolled & wrapped around the wound of the world.

If you tear off little strips of moon & wrap them around trees.

If you take a hammer to the moon, if out of it spills a history of love. Trail of tissue-thin moths. A lament. An excuse.

If you take the deepest breath you've ever taken & blow it at the moon. If it scatters into a trillion floating seeds like the white puffs of a dandelion. 

If we take turns mining the moon for metaphors.

If the moon falls out of the sky, if it feels cold & hard like a chunk of hail. Or malleable like hope. If it wriggles in your grasp like a glow-worm, or holds very still for fear of falling again.

If the moon falls into the ocean & you find it glowing under the water. If you hold your breath to stay in its company.

If it washes ashore, another pale thing throbbing on the beach.

If you swallow the moon, if you can contain it. If people shout “hey moon-mouth!” & try to wreck your vibe.

If instead of pupils people have little moons for eyes & instead of a moon there is a giant pupil in the sky.

If the moon is an egg, if it hatches to reveal narwhals, silverfish, more war.

If you love someone who can't love you back, so one night you reach your finger up into the blackness & move the moon to hang outside their window; if they love you then, or if they

move the moon to hang outside someone else’s window.

If the moon is a mailbox.

If the moon is a hole in the night, if you can fly an airship through those raveled seams.

If the moon has nothing to do with feelings. If it is as disinterested as a cotton ball. If you use its body to swab the open cut.

If the moon wonders about us. If it wears all our lonely confessions on its pocked surface. If each one leaves a crater in its skin.        What happens then.