Barbara Daniels

Man from the Moon

A man who walked on the moon feels heavy
without his bouncing footsteps and padded
hands. He stands at a window watching
his browned yard and cold gravel.

He sees a thin wire strung with celebrity,
a weighted body walking the wire,
the moon sliding further from his hand. 
A journalist asked him if he was happy.

He thinks he’s contented, a fire
snapping like popcorn, animals drowsy
in darkening rooms. He remembers
a little bedroom he shared with his wife,

its single window, space for a bed,
their few clothes hung in the hall.
Sometimes he thinks he hears gas hissing. 
He raises a finger to hush the wind. 

He is still handsome though what was easy
will not come again. He listens to voices
repeating themselves, giving the news of fronts
plunging, predicting snow that already came.

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Barbara Daniels’ Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas. Among her other books are Rose Fever and four chapbooks: Moon Kitchen, Black Sails, Quinn & Marie and The Woman Who Tries to Believe. Her poems have appeared in Good River Review, Neologism, Rust & Moth, Lake and elsewhere. She received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.