Anything so small

The moon split open and melted

from its metallic kernel

Burning up like the house down

the road in which someone left

Something on too long sometime ago

Outside, we looked up and watched

from our streets and our balconies and window seats

Parents clinging children in their arms

Dancers twining fingers like they couldn’t stop holding each other

That night everyone loved or hated

The darkness was soulless, the darkness was bliss

Though the stars did their best to shine on

This is what it felt like,

the ache

Like a peeled onion, that first shiny film as smooth

as the sight of a crescent

the rest was lava, hot dust, exploding

the layers kept browning and falling away

my ears ringing from how the gunshots kept firing

Up up on his balcony, someone powerful decided

That after all he did miss the old ways

and so he had a new one

manufactured and launched,

And waited.

Slowly but surely, the tides returned

the gunshots stopped,

geese flew up into the bright blue sky

Loving parents put their children down

so that at last they could run and run and run

and they did, some of them never returning to anyone’s arms

and all of those lovers entwined, still standing, went back to dancing like it was as easy as breathing

Soon everything was as if there had never been no moon at all

and no one else peeled away, not like an onion, not like anything so small.