The Moon After Election Day by Alex Dimitrov

The Moon After Election Day

 

I’m looking at the moon tonight,

the closest it’s been to Earth since 1948

and feel relieved we can do little to ruin it.

That can’t be true, you say, and for a moment

even the moon’s loneliness escapes isolation

and depends on something else. It’s attached.

Like us and what we abandon. Us

and the evil we refuse. The same evil

we share history with, the thin membrane

between you or me and the worst of life.

It’s already past midnight and another election

is over in the United States of America.

The oceans will not continue into infinity.

Nor will our money. Nor will this suffering.

We have voted and proven again

we do not know one another. I am trying

so hard to understand this country, I tell you

even as I’m about to fail loving you (I know this)

in the way people need to be loved

which is without deception, which is almost

impossible. Don’t you love it though, you say,

and I remember the first time I saw you in a room

without anyone else. Don’t you love the moon?

And because it’s easy to say it, I do, I make sure

to tell you I do. Despite the news I knew years ago:

no one saves anyone. We’re on the moon.