Chicagoetry: The Moon Must Be Heaven, Desolate

The Moon Must Be Heaven, Desolate

The moon must be heaven, desolate,
and every star a lost soul.

We have been to the moon
and found nothing, nothing
but stardust. We drove, played golf,
planted flags, with not a single ghost

sighted. Perhaps the ghosts
of heaven are invisible to us.
Perfectly feasible.

Feasible as fear, as mortality, as every day
collapses in on itself, compressing all the anxiety
that simply stepping out into the world anymore
engenders. No more pretending.

We can't help but wonder, even worry,
about heaven and about hell, teetering
ever so close to both.

We screen every call, refresh the batteries
in our smoke detectors, change the locks
on our doors, clutch our phones tightly

if we take them out at all in public,
concentrate on our peripheral vision.

We listen to the world more intently
because the sound will come first,
firecrackers that aren't firecrackers,

a car engine revving suddenly, shouts, gasps,
screams (we've mentally rehearsed jumping
off the Michigan Avenue bridge).

So, in this configuration, the sun -
burgeoning, blasting, bellicose,
though apparently serene from afar -
must be hell. In hell, we burn. In heaven

we golf on stardust
in the light from hell.

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J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood's poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.

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