Eric, You Forgot About the Moon by Eric Sparks

“Fool, you call yourself a writer or poet
or some other bullshit and I will admit you know
some big words and I know you’ve read some
long books, but how can you write, and love to write,
and not write about the moon. You spew words out
about friends and about love and about drugs;
shit, all you write about is you.
Wouldn’t it be poetic, wouldn’t it be grand, wouldn’t
it be beautiful to write about something that’s bigger than you.
Eric, you should write a poem about the moon.”

And I looked in his eyes and up at the moon and I sighed,
maybe cried and then smiled because, for me,
the moon will never die.

I said, “Fool, the moon’s not bigger than me. Don’t
you see it up there, it’s about the size of a penny. The
moon will never be more than a bright silver nickel
that lights that dark sky and laughs at me during the night.
Perhaps one day I’ll blast off to the moon and see what, if anything,
is true. And on that day, the moon will change to me;
and I remember that as a little kid, I asked nothing more of life
than that the moon would be made of cheese and a spaceman would
gift me a spaceship.