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1969

The summer everyone left for the moon

even those yet to be born. And the dead

who can’t vacation here but met us all there

by the veil between worlds. The No. 1 song

in America was “In the Year 2525”

because who has ever lived in the present

when there’s so much of the future

to continue without us.

How the best lover won’t need to forgive you

and surely take everything off your hands

without having to ask, without knowing

your name, no matter the number of times

you married or didn’t, your favorite midnight movie,

the cigarettes you couldn’t give up,

wanting to kiss other people you shouldn’t

and now to forever be kissed by the earth.

In the earth. With the earth.

When we all briefly left it

to look back on each other from above,

shocked by how bright even our pain is

running wildly beside us like an underground river.

And whatever language is good for,

a sign, a message left up there that reads:

“Here men from planet Earth first set foot

upon the moon, July 1969 A.D.

We came in peace for all mankind.”

Then returned to continue the war.