the moon & the moon & the moon by Lee Patterson

my esophagus has been crying, so I bought an umbrella for my heart. everything sags when it gets soggy. my doctor told me that. she had a stethoscope in her ears, the cold metal pressed against my chest. I told her cigarettes have been tasting better lately. she shrugged. the devil won’t mind, she told me. your wife will learn to love again. lately my dreams have been just the moon, held in place like it was glued to a black sheet of construction paper. in my dreams no one is walking on the moon, there is no flag flying at full mast—it’s just the moon & nothing else.

Lee Patterson‘s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Ethel Zine, The Airgonaut, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Flash Flood, among others. His chappook, I get sad, is forthcoming from Ethel Zine in late 2019.

Photo by Dollar Gill