I met the man in the moon one night,
a bit round for me, I admit,
but his brightness made up for it.
We discussed incandescent vs. fluorescent,
multiple personalities,
the color blue, heifers,
Jackie Gleason, the Reverend Sun Myung,
Neil Armstrong’s shoe size, Mount Everest,
and the competition on Jupiter.
He was real smart,
even though he was younger.
He wasn’t the cold disk you’d expect,
he made me warm.
We danced by his light and howled and went into a frenzy,
sprouting hairs and fangs and those damned long nails.
But we recovered.
In the morning we parted,
he with a shifty grin
and me with my not-so-easy hair color.
Bring, bring me the glass,
shine the light,
light up my life,
be the light of my life,
moon me.
In the morning, things always look different.
There’s no spotlight, everything’s exposed.
All equals under the sun.
The sun knows me.
Sees me in my underwear through the window;
sees me when I sleep late, ignore my responsibilities;
sees through my answer to where I was last night.
Still, Mr. Moonlight Man,
was a giant step in the right direction.
But I lose:
my keys
sunglasses, headphones,
steam, my stomach, face,
the Man in the Moon.
After only two short weeks
he didn’t show.
I expected it though;
each time I saw him he looked thinner and paler
even geriatric.
What had been in my mind?
But that first night was empty: a mirror in a blind man’s
hallway.
The rules are: don’t expect anything, then you’ll never be sorry;
brush your teeth three times a day,
and especially after Hershey’s;
don’t sit with your legs open when you’re wearing a skirt;
don’t bank in a piggy;
don’t bite off more than you can spit out.
It’s simple.
He fooled me with all that talk about midnight,
high on the Milky Way and Mallow Mars.
It’s OK though.
Fun while it lasted.
Soon to be soon.
It was only a minute, moment, midnight, mister.
It must have been moonglow.
