by Elizabeth Langemak

“I admit that the spots are seas, I admit that the bright areas are land.”
—Johannes Keper, considering the moon.

I admit that the moon
is not quite itself.  I tell

you I’ve made an earth
of its surface with dark

spots for seas and light
spans of land.  Through

this scope I have managed
to see what I want: air

I could take and rivers
engraved through each

hill.  Is there nothing
so remote it resists

us, nothing so foreign
it cannot stand our mark?

In the moon I confess
I have seen my face

reflected paler but brighter
in a mirror too distant to touch.

***

Elizabeth Langemak’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Subtropics, 32 Poems, The Bellingham Review, Gulf Coast,Ninth Letter, The Cincinnati Review, and Best New Poets: Fifty Poems by Emerging Writers.  She currently lives in Bethany, West Virginia.