orange moon song

our town is quiet tonight,
he says while
outlining the orange moon then
pinching it between his thumb and finger.
it’s easy to turn god while holding something
so mighty and cratered.
you can feel undamaged and holy
if you aren’t careful.
but it must be loud,
i thought.
(we must not have been listening all the way through,
just in the wishy-washy type of way)

in the dark navy night of august,
our town whimpers reminiscences
between the corners of trees and
empty, plastic lawn chairs.
at this hour the roadkill choir sings
and the little boy who drowned
in the pond dances,
while his mom asks the murky, green water
if he jumped off the trestle or fell.
she asks this question every night,
but he only dances on the
full orange moon song day.

as i sit beside the boy who
can hold the moon,
i wonder what it’s like to watch
a town burn.
it’d be freeing to sing
as we watch each building
fall into itself.
everyone would run outside, just like
how we used to (except with more urgency),
and finally we could become
one with our ghosts.
we’d pet the deer we hit with our cars,
dance with our grandparents we should
have visited more often,
and the little boy who drowned would
ask his mother to think of swinging
and picking poppies when
she thought of him.
she’ll feel weightless then.

he let go of the moon then,
and we turned back into delinquents
sitting on tall hill past curfew.
our town was doused in orange
from light of the moon
and it was quiet,
as it should be.