A Widow and the Moon

 A widow looks up

At the moon

A widow forgets

That the moon

Doesn’t know her

And so it knows her

The moon asks the woman

If she’d like to come up

And see him

For awhile

And the widow

Says ‘Yes’

Because she’d like speak

About her wife

Who she lost so long ago

The widow steps up

And steps up

And soon she is above

When for so long

She had been beneath

Beneath the invisible

Gravity of grief

She still felt

Full of despondency

But when you have

To hike up your dress

And make your way

Up an aircase

You can’t let much

Weigh you down

The aircase

Much like a staircase

Wound its way

Around whatever

It encountered

So she walked around

Clouds and cloud pockets

And more than a few stars

When she reached the moon

He invited her to sit

And tell him stories

About her wife

The widow told the moon

The story of how she met her wife

And the story of how they were taken apart

By the natural way of things

The moon understands

How things move, naturally

But he listened

And cooled the ground

So that the widow

Could sit and sit

And never feel uncomfortable

Great layers of dust

Kicked up and formed a chair

But the widow found

That she liked sitting cross-legged

At the edge of a crater

Staring down into it

Feeling smaller than she’d ever felt

But peaceful as a result

When the widow was done

Telling the moon

Stories of her wife as her wife

She told her stories

Of her wife as a daughter

And a sister

And a friend

And any part of her wife’s life

That she wasn’t familiar with

She made up

And soon the story

Became a story

About so much more

Than her wife

It became a story

About everyone her wife knew

And everyone they knew

And why they knew each other

And soon the widow

Was telling stories

Of animals and plants

And dinosaurs

And everything that had ever

Been alive on the planet

She had climbed away from

The moon listened

Even though he knew the story

Of the earth

And everyone on it

Because he had watched from afar

But when the widow

Told of things like tears

And laughter

And all things too small

For the moon to see

From space

He found that he had stopped spinning

And was now a moon

Of another planet

Far away from the solar system

When he had spent

All of his existence

He began to worry

But the widow told him

Never to fear

For she knew her way

Back to earth

And could get there

Provided she could simply

Sleep for a bit

So the dust made a bed

And she climbed into it

And as she closed her eyes

The moon found itself

Being pulled back

To where it

Belonged