by Flavian Mark Lupinetti
Good idea, Sweet Lou.
No need to nuke the moon.
Just… scooch it over a little.
Like you said, make it travel
in a slightly bigger circle.
Or a slightly smaller one,
whatever, let the Forest Service
guys figure it out.
Oh, I know you know it’s an ellipse.
Just… adjust it.
The foresters have the know-how,
not to mention a whole lot of
picks and shovels, right?
Sure, you could ask NASA
to do the job with rockets.
But I see what you’re after.
Change the moon’s orbit,
but do it in an artisanal way.
Flavian Mark Lupinetti, a writer and cardiac surgeon, received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His fiction and poetry have appeared in About Place, Barrelhouse, Bellevue Literary Review, Beltway Poetry Review, Briar Cliff Review, Cutthroat, The Examined Life, Neon, PROEM, Weber—The Contemporary West, and ZYZZYVA.
