By CAROL HAMILTON

We met at the park in dark enough
though Full Moon bathed us luminescent.
We picnicked, sipped wine, sang every
moon song we could think of, said every
saying, read our own tributes, stared
at the craters and lava lakes through
my Dobsonian telescope, hooded to
keep out too much light. There is
no water there.
Still, we name her Romance,
a place of pure hot or pure cold.
We die of these things
but we don’t care. She’s far away
and tugs at our very breath.
She is a Muse, like Beatrice or Laura.
If she keeps her radiant distance
we can gather like this,
full of song and memory
and all our lost longings.