on the cliff, breathing the nighttime fog coating last
february, where the world was upside down, all
those stars collected under our shoes: there the gravity
around you began to change shape. the moon
already knew this would happen, yet she warned me
of nothing and instead she wept. it was not the stars
who shamed her crescent, but the smile i wore beside you.

in her waxing and waning, i told her many things
about you, the moon listened and later forgave
as my smiles were shadowed by heartache. oh, but
had she been the sun watching the warm pool
of mornings where you were there with me,
i would have been left especially lonely.

the moon repeats you, i cannot see her right now.
we have spoken little in winter, still i look up, i am
at a place where the world is upside down: here
the stars are as uncommon as she is, instead i explore
her glass ocean. i cannot see her right now, but at
last her voice is here to shield me from drowning. she
says, “it has been many a month since i have last seen
that shadowed smile you are wearing, but it is for your sake,
and for the sake of the stars, that i hope it is your last.”