Restless Moon

I tell her “go to sleep.”
It’s late afternoon and she’s perched
blush-pink in the sheer sunset.

You call me and tell me you feel lucky to know me.
I am always fearful of indulging in such romances
but I give in and say, “I think I was meant to meet you.”

The less romantic truth is I feel this way
about just about all the trans people I cross paths with—
the way our sameness punctures all the cis words

I’ve been trying to speak. I pour out.
Night comes softest in April. Not too early
not too late. Does the moon get to meet other moons?

The night before I stayed up just to talk to you
and now I think maybe the moon is doing the same—
trying maybe to glimpse a Jupiter moon or

a Saturn moon. Maybe she just waves.
Maybe she lusts ardently. Craving to graze
another’s orbit. It’s been two weeks since my skin

touched yours. I ask you to be less far away.
Tell you I want to take scissors to our map
and yet, like the moon, I would stare

through midnights and middays
to witness your voice. Believe in fate with me
and sit between veil-clouds with our restless moon.

Robin Gow is trans and queer poet and Young Adult author from rural Pennsylvania.