Postcard from the Parking Lot

Dear Moon,

Listen, I know you get a lot of mail.

Every drunk poet and their grandmother

has probably written you at least twice.

But I saw you tonight hanging low

over the grocery store parking lot

and thought, why not.

You looked lonely up there.

Or maybe that was just me projecting.

I've been thinking about how you show up

even when nobody's watching.

How you do your whole routine,

waxing, waning, the full deal,

whether we pay attention or not.

That must get old.

My grandmother used to plant by you.

Said you knew things about the soil

that science hadn't figured out yet.

She's gone now, but sometimes I catch myself

checking your phase before I make decisions,

like you might have opinions about my life.

Do you ever get tired of being a metaphor?

Everyone wants you to mean something.

Cycles and femininity and madness.

Time and tides and transformation.

Maybe you just want to be a rock

doing rock things in space.

Here's the thing.

I'm glad you're there.

On the bad nights when I can't sleep,

you're up too, keeping watch

through my window. On the good nights

when I'm walking home late,

you light the whole street silver.

You've outlasted empires.

You've seen every human who ever lived

do their little dance and disappear.

And you just keep going, faithful

in a way nothing else is.

So this is me saying thanks, I guess.

For being the one constant

in a world that won't stop changing.

For making the dark less dark.

For still showing up.

I'll be here, looking up

when I remember to.

Your friend,

(you know who)