UNIVERSE VIEWING FROM HOME

I’ve canceled the blue moon

and the lunar eclipse.

I’m requesting cash back

for the night I spent in a parking lot,

binoculars in hand searching for Hale-Bopp.

There is no reason to revisit the sky

so many times in a life.

Think bed slippers, ceiling fan.

Let’s not set our alarms for three a.m.,

the best viewing time for the Orionid meteor shower.

Instead, watch me flick embers

across our living room,

say sevenish?

I’ll point as it passes: Did you see it?

You can say, No.

The miracle recreated.

Let’s not put our faith in astronomers,

they are still discovering moons for Jupiter.

Four years ago, eleven more.

Where were they hiding?

Let’s not put our faith in anyone

until they begin naming moons after poets.

Neruda is a minor planet, number 1875.

Neruda has a crater-in-waiting on Mercury.

Give me a poem, a book, a body to revolve around

in our cluttered cosmos.

Let me climb beneath this blue night,

blue moon, blue comforter pulled far above our heads.