email exchanges with the moon

Re: Your Poem, Monday 9:12 pm

The Moon to Me:

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

I regret to inform you


your poem arrived

too muddy with fingerprints

You keep calling me a miracle


but forget the men

who planted a flag


in my throat


& called it arrival

called it a giant leap for mankind

as if falling upward


were something new

‎ ‎ ‎

You keep writing of hands

try again this time

without gravity

‎ ‎

Re: Your Poem, Monday 9:46 pm

Me
to The Moon:

‎

Hey dude

You speak like someone

who has never dreamt of 


the dark side of the moon

‎

Every time I reach for light


I come back


with dirt under my nails

Maybe that’s the point


to stay human is to keep

a little earth
in the mouth


so even prayer tastes


of home & iron

I send these poems your way


because what else
can I do


with the dark
but build

a small country
inside it

‎

Re: Your Poem, Tuesday 10:31 pm

The Moon
to Me:

‎

I have read your poem again,


& regret to inform you


that it trembles too much

They said one small step
but forgot


how many graves it takes


to build a ladder

‎

Re: Your Poem, Tuesday 11:56 pm

Me
to The Moon:

‎

once / when i was five / my mother left the lights on / said it keeps the ghosts away/the next morning / she was asleep on the floor / her palm open / like a cracked cup / i tried to pour the morning back into her /i am writing to you / because that same week / my mother / and her mother / adorned themselves in two-dollar sarees / twirling in a thrift store/ turning grief into glitter /suddenly junkyard artists / i had no language / only the rusted music / of inheritance / so i write / because that’s what i am / a junkyard artist / soldering memory / into meaning / i hope you understand/ mouth is a wound / where god opened us up / sometimes i open the fridge / just to see what shines / butter / beer cans / tinfoil ghosts /yes there is conceit/ in sitting down and writing about this /but there is conceit in writing at all / i’m still learning / thanks to you /how to live with the light / that doesn’t stay /

‎

Re: Your Poem, Wednesday 12:42 am

The Moon to Me:

‎

I regret to inform you

you were foolish enough to love

one place now you are an orphan

in a succession of shelters

‎

they tell me you sleep well

the nights you press your face against

the granite in your kitchen and pretend

to be lichen trying to grow there

‎

even Kahlo had to earn

her strangeness so what is with

you poets and the soft animal

of your bodies

‎

you ask what keeps me bright -

i keep what cannot be buried

into the marbled skin of the earth

‎

if there is a god here

he’s learning english from your letters

he keeps mispronouncing mercy

‎

Re: Your Poem, Friday 1:19 am

Me to The Moon:

‎

these are winter months

it’s the wrong season

to have a crush but

everything is possible

in the quickening dark

our bodies silver thanks to you

everything is possible

I think (?) with my body

but not always with language

I have lived here for eight years

and yet I am shocked every time it rains

only now my shock has years of rain in it

how the lit houses swallow half

the yawning sky the night not lit by you

‎

***