By Jewel Guerra

“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon?
Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”

Pull it down to the ground
Where it can be processed
And made into cheese
So it can be packaged
And shipped around the country
So astronauts don’t have to fly in
spaceships
To get moon cheese for lunch

Man in the moon, you make me swoon
But the man in the moon is gone
His smile has gone dark
He now exists in plastic wrappers
Bouncing in boxes
In a dirty truck delivering produce to
stores

The howls of werewolves
In the pages of Harry Potter
have been silenced
And the seas stay calm
No longer raging and roaring
In the windy Bay Area
Because the moon is cold
Sitting on the shelves of grocery outlets
Sold for 5 dollars per pound

Little children
Go to bed crying
Because the pages of Goodnight Moon
Are torn and forgotten
Its subject no longer glowing in the sky

It is now cooling in the refrigerators
of average Americans
The boy with his fishing hook
And the cow with her spots
Are both homeless now
Slowly freezing in space
Their home now devoured
By hungry children
With dirty hands

Neil Armstrong is forgotten
His big step for mankind
Is nothing but a stumble or a trip
Not even mentioned in history
textbooks
That no one ever reads
The American flag oats through the
stars
Cold and torn
Because her home is gone

The stars miss their friend
And the sun misses her partner
They cry and they weep
And grow cold from grief

Because the moon is now shattered
Shipped across the nation
Cold and small and wrapped in plastic
Thrown in school lunch boxes
Or sitting in the back of the fridge
Growing fuzzy green mold

And whenever someone opens her up
Throwing the plastic on the ground
The moon cries out
“Don’t you remember me?”
“Don’t you remember my glow?”
And the only response
Is an open mouth
And grinding teeth

Honorable Mention: Jewel Guerra
Marin School of the Arts /Novato High School (Teacher: Rebecca Pollack)