The Moon Has Eyes
She slept on the dark side of the moon. She slumbered in unearthly silence, no violin of crickets, no braying of the neighbor’s baby, no wind stirring at the windows. She curled under her favorite molehill of moon like a lunar dog, the dust rising and settling with her breath in low gravity. From earth, with a powerful telescope, you might see her as a small hair in the ear of old man moon, nothing more.
He moved his camp every 29 and a half days to stay in sunlight, wondering when he would step into his own footsteps from years before, a journey full circle across a landscape littered with craters like empty eyes. He pulled the foolscap from his rucksack and began another poem. The moon has eyes, he wrote, as his cosmic fire waved silent and smokeless. The moon has eyes, he wrote, and they watch for you. Henry would make the long walk to visit Claire as often as he could, though his eyes never seemed to adjust.
He thought fondly of their next visit, some 207 earth days away. In the darkness, he would fumble like her lost lunar puppy, feeling his way along the ridges of eye sockets he’d made into poetry. Tell me one, she would say, when they had settled into an embrace, knowing that the foolscap would be unreadable in the ink black. The moon has eyes, he would begin. As earth drifted overhead like a shard of stained glass, they would share secrets and make plans. Stay with me, she would say, her voice breaking, but he’d be asleep.
by Sam
