Written by Riley Hart
The moon was low and orange the night he died,
almost like it was holding him in its mouth, sick
with the secret. I couldn’t stop watching my hands
light up, glow stick fingers rooted to oil spill palms.
The moon was round and too close to the ground,
and I thought it might swallow me too. It grinned,
its last meal caught like a scarab in amber teeth;
the man stuck inside looked down where his body
was supposed to be, now just a neon mist. Swollen
like a pomegranate, the moon sang low and the mist
shuddered, greedy vibrations threatening to inhale
him.
As he was stolen by the satellite’s gentle breath,
he wouldn’t stop watching my hands, none of his
own to hold on. I unscrewed my left wrist and threw,
luminescent leakage splattering over the desert sand,
and the moon laughed, “What good will it do, giving
fingers to fog?” I looked down at the reddened stump,
asked, “What will it hurt?” And the moon licked its lips.