Moon-aphor		

Wait, the moon is a big pizza pie
in the sky? I don’t think so. Man 
in the Moon, I never quite saw it.
A dinner plate, a saucer, a heavenly
body. (I’d like one of those.) 

Mistaken for a lamppost
on a drunken stumble home. 
That’s more like it.
An orb. A cue ball. 

At times a mere crescent,
a meniscus, the Dreamworks logo
of the boy fishing off its edge.
The cutout in an outhouse door.

A half moon doesn’t know
which way it’s headed,
it’s useless in guiding me.

The moon aligns with nothing.
Planets can at least do that
from our perspective on Earth.

Let’s face it, the moon is a symbol.
Maybe a cymbal. That’s it.

The moon is our soul.

Stephen Schwei is a Pushcart-nominated Houston poet with Wisconsin roots, published in Wax Poetry & Art, RFD Magazine, GetOutMag.com, Hidden Constellation, Borfski Press, and Table//Feast and is the winner of the 2023 Kenan Ince Memorial Prize in Poetry. He has published one volume of poetry, Bluebonnet Whispers and a collaboration, Catch Me at the Carnival. A gay man with three grown children and four wonderful grandchildren, who worked in Information Technology most of his life, he can be a mass of contradictions. Poetry helps to sort all of this out.  www.stephenschwei.com @steveschwei