The moon is no longer
unobtainable. Someday it will go
to the highest bidder
or the one with the most bombs.
Like a Roman candle bursting
into bloom, the moon will explode.
I picture its shattering,
glittery shrapnel scattering
through the sudden dark.
Tonight its fragments
slip downriver
like lanterns set afloat
to commemorate
the unnamed,
the disappeared,
the collateral damage
wreaked by faceless warriors
secluded at controls
thousands of miles away.
CJ Muchhala
CJ Muchhala’s work can be found in Never Forgotten: 100 Poets Remember 9/11, as well as other anthologies, print and on-line journals including Mobius: the Journal of Social Change, Rise Up Review, previous issues of Portage, and in art/poetry exhibits. Her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and twice for the Pushcart Prize.
Portage Magazine 