What the moon saw
Was a brown-haired girl
Playing private eye on her lawn
With a flashlight beam
Catching off my window.

I gave her a haircut
That afternoon in her bathroom.
Standing on that cold tile floor
We compared feet sizes
As her hair fell like brown leaves
Around our ankles
Leaving our toes to jag out
Like rocks on the sea floor.

She said men’s feet
Were too bent in general
And she covered her mouth and smiled
And said I could have been a statue
Holding down a great beast.
Like Davy Crockett.
And her conviction was ageless.
And her hands were silent
And I mistook her silence for strength
So that I could have promised her anything.

Now I sit on my floor
Watching the moon
Watch my neighbor on her lawn.
Her hair is much shorter now
And some ends hang off her head
Like a sharp catastrophe.

I couldn’t help but send her off early
To catch up with me faster.