Astronomy

Trying to sew a stitch in the tattered jacket
of air that cloaks us, each with our aches:
you and your distance of four thousand miles—
I’ll pretend airplanes exist twice a year

and dream myself Icarus, you in my wings;
awake I’m confounded when I am reminded
that your world is half of a lifetime from mine.
Why can we not fold the Earth on its axis,

let our cities rub ankles, sniff wrists, and kiss
like clandestine lovers? You don’t have to call
to know I’m calling for you when I imagine
what the night looks like naked, robe discarded,

cloth the color of closed eyelids, dashed
and dotted with fragments of sheen we’ve learned
to call stars. You argue that the time it takes,
the money it takes, the urges swept under

the rug for six months or longer could not make
you feel warmer––but when I look at the sky
and wonder how one person can lasso
the lights and bring them closer, I understand

how it is possible to see faces in the moon.