ɪɴᴜʀᴇ [ᴘᴏᴇᴛʀʏ]

ᴠɪɪɪ. ᴀᴘᴏʟʟᴏ 11

Faded pearl of the sky, the Moon;
        Bright — just right.
Her solacing lullaby guarded the repository of lone wolves,
nurtured the dreams of night owls, of nyctophilic animals.

Her beauty is slow, deliberate, a fraud;
Her skin reeks of feminine vanity; white base, grey
        contour, coarse tint for the lips.
Still, the ocean is her mirror, and in its direction she tips.

To Them, she was an achievement: "One small step for a man,
        a giant leap for mankind."
Carpe noctem, noctiphany — she knows no Latin.
She is the faded pearl of the sky, the Moon;
       Bright — always right.

I am not Them — not Armstrong, nor Aldrin or Collins; but
       I have been compared to the Moon, because
I'm lonely — and objectified, a pearl in an
unfinished necklace, waiting to be discovered and claimed by
       my Apollo 11.
But I am bright — too bright.

Apollo, deity of the Sun, of poetry, of
       wisdom and truth.
I need not Freud to compare me to Them — to men.
I do not envy what I cannot have; I do not
       envy the male genitalia.

And I wish the Moon would learn, too.

Fading pearl of the sky, the Moon;
       Bright — not right.
Apollo 17 was her last; a man, product of a plan.
But he is the deity of the Sun;
Without him, she'd never be a prize to be won.